Opinion

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Editorial

Dry Bones HAPPY HOLIDAY

Behind The Prize

as Mohammed El
Baradei's Nobel Peace
Prize a case of wishful
thinking? Did the judges really
believe that El Baradei, the head
of the International Atomic
Energy Agency (IAEA), has
ratcheted up enough political
and diplomatic pressure on Iran
to stop or slow its nuclear-
weapons program?
The Nobel citation calls the
IAEAs director a "fearless advo-
cate" of curbing nuclear arms
and calls the importance of his
agency's work "incalculable." Or
were the judges rewarding El
Baradei for refusing to buttress
the Bush administration's 2003
claim — and its rationale for the
Iraq war— that Saddam Hussein
was re-starting Iraq's nuclear
weapons program? As history
has proved, the Iraqi dictator had
no weapons of mass destruction
or atomic weapons.
And if you're looking for a
repeat performance of Israel's
1981 attack on Iraq's Osirak

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nuclear reactor, that's highly
unlikely. Saddam, no great shakes
as a military planner, put all of
his nuclear eggs in one basket,
making the reactor a tempting
target for Israeli fighter-
bombers. That one bold attack
probably ended the greatest
threat in the Middle East and to
the Jewish state. Indeed, many of
Iraq's neighbors were secretly
thrilled by the Israeli strike.
For their part, the Iranians
learned from the Osirak mission;
they have scattered their nuclear
facilities — many of them in
reinforced bunkers — all over
their country, which is about the
size of Alaska. And even Israel's
undaunted air force probably
cannot pull off an Osirak-like
operation without some outside
help.
That help — from either
America or NATO — could be an
awfully big stick for El Baradei to
wield along with economic and
political inducements from the
Europeans to get Iran's ruling

SIT IN LEAF- `4
COVERED RICKETY

The Iranians have

NUTS.

learned from the

Osirak mission.

mullahs to the bargaining table.
Meanwhile, as Washington
columnist Douglas Bloomfield
points out, Iran is "emboldened by
America's problems in Iraq ... and
Tehran's treasury is bulging with
revenues from soaring oil prices ...
[as] billions of those petrodollars"
are being pumped into the mul-
lahs' nuclear-arms program:'
What a mess. If El Baradei can
help untangle it — and a little
nuclear problem with North Korea
— he will have deserved his
peace prize. Until then, we're
reserving judgment on his pre-
mature selection.

A LUXURY IN 4Z11
THESE TIMES OF
FOLKS MADE
HOMELESS BY

HURRICANES,
EARTHQUAKES
AND MASSIVE
MUO SIZES'

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wvmdrybonesproject.com

❑

Reality Check

Sinful Politics

stopped thinking of myself as
a Democrat a good many
years ago. It was some time
after the left wing of the party
decided to punish Hubert
Humphrey, a committed liberal
and a good and decent man, in
the 1968 presidential election
and handed the White House to
Richard Nixon.
Now there was an absolutely
brilliant piece of strategy. It did-
n't shorten the Vietnam War by a
single day and turned over the
Supreme Court to conservative
control.
They followed up this idiotic
performance by handing the
1972 nomination to George
McGovern, which gave me the
choice of either voting for a com-
plete stiff or for Nixon. So I
waved goodbye and, except for
the Bill Clinton years, haven't felt

I

at October 20 . 2005

a compelling reason to return.
I keep looking, though,
because I'm not too thrilled with
the alternative either. But a recent
e-mail reminded me again why I
left.
I don't usually react to these
messages some people feel corn-
pelled to send to everyone they
know. Everyone has the right to
speak their mind, after all. But
this one was so vacuous and so
smug.
It was called "George Bush's
Yom Kippur" and had the presi-
dent reciting the Al Cheit in
repentance for all his "sins" of the
past year. As I read down the list
of sins, they turned out to be
Bush's stubborn refusal to
embrace Democratic policies.
Call him mistaken. Call him
dumb. But a sinner?
My guess is this e-mail was

elections. They are more
drafted by the same
intent with striking
people who scream
poses than devising poli-
bloody murder whenev-
cies with broad appeal,
er they think conserva-
voting for feel-good can-
tives are imposing their
didates in the primaries
religious values on the
instead of someone with
political process. When
a chance to win.
you accuse someone of
You can't win elec-
committing a sin, how- George Cantor
tions by waving your
Colum nist
ever, isn't that exactly
arms and yelling "No,
what you are doing ...
No, No." Clinton understood that
in spades?
His fiscal policies, his appoint- and ran on a program with
strong centrist appeal that was
ments, his conduct of the war in
advanced by the Democratic
Iraq — all fair game for criti-
Leadership Council.
cism. Unless you confuse the
The party's left detests the
Democratic Party platform for
DLC almost as much as it does
Torah, though, there is no sin in
Sinful George. Aside from 1976,
winning an election and follow-
however, when voters wanted to
ing up with the policies that had
punish the Republicans for
been approved by the voters.
Watergate, the Clinton years were
I would even suggest that this
the only time the party won the
attitude is the very reason that
presidency since it decided to
Democrats keep losing national

turn against Humphrey for not
being sufficiently anti-war. Is
there a message there?
Of course, religion should play
a part in informing your choices
as a citizen. It's a pretty pallid
religion that wouldn't. But that's a
far cry from calling your oppo-
nent a sinner, which is the sort of
name-calling the extremists on
both sides routinely practice
these days.
I keep reading that the day is
coming when moderates on both
sides will break away and form a
new political party. Where the .
Democrats of Clinton and Joe
Lieberman will sit down with the
Republicans of John McCain and
Rudy Giuliani.
It can't come soon enough for
me. I want a home.

❑

George Cantor's e-mail address is
gcantor614@aol.com.

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