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Director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Dr. Mohammed ElBaradei, says five years of US and international efforts to rein in Iran's nuclear ambitions are a failure. He told the Los Angeles Times Sat. Dec. 6: "We haven't moved one inch toward addressing the issues." DEBKAfile's political sources: ElBaradei's words are the answer to president George W. Bush's reiteration Friday in a summing-up of his foreign policy record that the US would not allow Iran to develop an atomic weapon.The UN official bluntly marked the sanctions-incentives policy "a failure."The same mark automatically applies to Israel's leaders and their dogged reliance on the international community to prevent Iran acquiring nuclear weapons – a line favored by president Shimon Peres, ex-prime minister Ariel Sharon, incumbent Ehud Olmert, foreign minister Tzipi Livni and defense minister Ehud Barak.The IAEA director stressed: "Tehran continues to acquire nuclear technology and stockpiling sensitive material" after three sets of international sanctions and the US-European offer of economic and security incentives.In retrospect, the sanctions may have led to "more hardening of the position of Iran," ElBaradei said. "Many Iranians who even dislike the regime are gathering around the regime because they feel that their country is under siege." Nonetheless, Israel's government leaders stick to the demand for more sanctions in the face of the IAEA director's confirmation that this course has got exactly nowhere (as argued for years in DEBKAfile analyses).As in the days of Noah...
