Contrary to the expectations of many, this year’s Nobel Peace Prize was not awarded to Mohamed El-Baradei, head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog.
That made it seem the prize was given to Osama Bin Laden, head of Al-Qaeda organization.
There is some sort of a special relationship between Alfred Nobel and Bin Laden; the first invented dynamite and the second used it. Of course, Nobel would say his discovery was intended for peaceful purposes — to open up roads in rugged mountain areas and not to destroy buildings. Granting the prize to the Kenyan environment activist, Wangari Maathai, is a welcome move. She may deserve it. However, for his efforts as head of the UN International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Baradei deserves the prize more.
Had the prize been given to Baradei, it would have served as a message to the entire world that an Arab and Muslim personality has indeed contributed a great deal toward maintaining and protecting international peace. That would have produced a picture different from the one the world continues to see in Arabs and Muslims as knife-wielding butchers.
For seven years, Baradei has been head of the body responsible for protecting the world from nuclear threat. Within one year he will leave the post when his tenure comes to an end. During the years he has been in the post, the world experienced some of its most dangerous periods since the end of the Cold War. We witnessed several cases of “nuclear mutiny” staged by a number of countries.
Baradei managed to handle these in the most professional and responsible manner and managed to tame down the mutineers whose nuclear threat constitutes a great threat to their neighbors who lack proper means of protection and deterrence.
Baradei started his office by inspecting Iraq’s weapons program. He did not seek to protect Saddam Hussein, nor did he agree to issue a deceitful report saying that Iraq was hiding or intending to manufacture weapons of mass destruction. He did surprise the world when he announced that Iran was in possession of enriched uranium, something that the Iranians have long been denying and only admitted recently. He addressed two other crises that were no less serious: North Korea which went a long way in arming itself, and Pakistan which declared its possession of the bomb.
In the case of North Korea, Baradei sought to convince the Koreans to stop developing nuclear weapons and install a monitoring system but at the same time left the door open for politicians to compensate the Koreans for their cooperation.
As for Iran, IAEA scientists presented irrefutable evidence that repeated statements by Iranian officials were no more than lies. Without engaging in a political row with the Iranians, Baradei sought to convince Tehran to cooperate and get clean and safe energy. He did not hesitate to criticize Israel over its nuclear arsenal and went to that country for the first IAEA direct confrontation with the Israelis. His staff assessed the damage caused by Israel nuclear reactors to Palestinians, Egyptians and Jordanians.
A man like Baradei, performing this dangerous mission in the face of the most difficult regimes in the world, and most importantly, for being an Arab and Muslim, deserved international recognition and appreciation. Such appreciation would have reflected positively on his fellow Arabs and Muslims who feel they are only mentioned when prizes of terror are distributed and are ignored when they do something positive.
