It's About Time

It's good to know that the administration is finally getting taking some action on the issue of Iran.

By tapping Mohammed ElBaradei's phones in an effort to oust him as head of the IAEA, obstensibly because of his failure to "get tough" on Iran.

This won't be a long post. The bone-headedness of the administration going after El Baradei, as opposed to the Iranians currently working on nuclear weapons, is pretty self evident. The reasons why are pretty self-evident also. Not only did ElBaradei oppose the administration on the war in Iraq, flat out telling us our intelligence was wrong, but worse...he had the gall to be right. There are few things this administration has more trouble forgiving than opposing them, but daring to be right in opposing them is one of them. Fortunately the adminstration will have some trouble removing him.

But the diplomatic offensive will not be easy. The administration has failed to come up with a candidate willing to oppose ElBaradei, who has run the agency since 1997, and there is disagreement among some senior officials over how hard to push for his removal, and what the diplomatic costs of a public campaign against him could be.

I suppose it would be too much trouble to hope that the adminstration will focus on Iran itself. Maybe after they're thwarted on this latest reprisel, they'll have no choice but to finally get serious.