Running true to form

The US has in effect openly admitted it is trying to force Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), out of office at the end of his term. Lame duck Secretary of State Colin Powerless has acknowledged that last summer he told ElBaradei to not seek a third term.

What's more, the US has been actively seeking people to stand against him.

Alexander Downer, the Australian Foreign Minister confirmed this week he was approached by the United States to compete with ElBaradei for his job. Downer said he would not stand against ElBaradei and threw his country's weight behind his retention.

The reasoning Powerless offered for pressing for ElBaradei's ouster is suspect, to say the least.

Powell and his deputy Richard Boucher on Monday said the sole U.S. reason for trying to remove ElBaradei was an informal agreement among some 14 countries that leaders of UN and other international bodies should serve no more than two terms.

"We see no reason why this shouldn't be the case with the IAEA," Powell told The Associated Press.

Except it never has been before. Why the change? Why is ElBaradei a target? There have been rumors going around that it's because the US is unhappy with his work on Iran's nuclear-related programs; the assertion is he's being too soft on Teheran. The US has certainly made no secret of the fact that it wants Iran to be brought up before the Security Council for sanctions and any IAEA report that downplayed an immediate threat was a hindrance to that goal. But another possibility has been raised: ElBaradei displayed let's call it unhelpfulness on Iraq prior to the war, when IAEA inspectors kept reporting there was no evidence of an Iraqi nuclear program at the same time the White House was falsely claiming Saddam Hussein was trying to buy uranium ore from Niger, a claim based on a document the IAEA effortlessly proved was a fraud. So he not only disagreed with the Shrub gang, he embarrassed them - and in both cases, he was right and they were wrong. And now it's payback time.

Whatever the truth of that, and I say there's a good deal of it, two things can be said about US opposition to ElBaradei: It can't be based on his record of accuracy. And it can't be based on his lack of support from other major powers, with not only close ally Australia but China recently announcing their support for a third term.

So once again it's the US singing "You and Me Against the World (Except There Ain't No You)."