LAY OFF ELBARADEI

Bush administration officials have been badmouthing Mohamed ElBaradei, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, publicly and privately for years and have just lost a campaign to prevent the Egyptian lawyer’s re-election for a third four-year term. Other candidates, including some recruited by the United States, have all dropped out. Mr. ElBaradei is slated for re-election at the agency’s annual membership meeting in September.

Publicly, the Bush administration has been pressing for a two-term limit on his position, which it has generally advocated for the United Nations secretary-general and other top jobs there. Privately, the administration apparently hasn’t forgotten his findings in the run- up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, that the agency’s inspectors could find no evidence that Iraq had an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction or was about to acquire them. What stung worst was that he turned out to be right.

It also resents his statements that no evidence has turned up that Iran has begun to make highly enriched uranium for producing nuclear weapons. It is an article of faith in the Bush administration that Iran is already secretly making highly enriched uranium bombs. Mr. ElBaradei told Lally Weymouth, a Washington Post-Newsweek correspondent, a month ago that Iran had cheated in the past and was caught at it, but now was cooperating with the international inspectors.

A month ago, Mr. ElBaradei came out with “seven steps to raise world security” in an op-ed article published by the Financial Times. Bush administration officials would agree with many of his proposals, especially his first step, putting a five-year hold on additional facilities for uranium enrichment and plutonium separation. He argued that the nuclear industry already has more than enough capacity to fuel power plants and research centers.

While Iran and others object to any restriction on their development of nuclear power, some authorities say that upgrading uranium processing from a power-production level to weapons grade is relatively easy.

Mr. ElBaradei also urged prompt and decisive U.N. Security Council action in any threat to withdraw from the Nonproliferation Treaty or any illicit trading in nuclear material or technology. His final step was to “acknowledge the volatility of long-standing tensions that give rise to proliferation, in regions such as the Middle East and the Korean peninsula, and take action to resolve existing security problems and, where needed, provide security assurances.”

Instead of sniping at this skillful and effective international official, the Bush administration should accept his re-election and work with him to contain the spread of nuclear weapons.