Ledeen vs. ElBaradei, Part II

On September 3rd, I posted The Rollout War: Michael Ledeen of the A.E.I. vs. Mohamed ElBaradei of the I.A.E.A.. That “war” is heating up.

This morning, the editoral page of the Washington Post unleashed an attack on El Baradei, describing him as a Rogue Regulator: “For some time Mohamed ElBaradei, the Egyptian diplomat who heads the International Atomic Energy Agency, has made it clear he considers himself above his position as a U.N. civil servant. Rather than carry out the policy of the Security Council or the IAEA board, for which he nominally works, Mr. ElBaradei behaves as if he were independent of them, free to ignore their decisions and to use his agency to thwart their leading members -- above all the United States.”

As my mother used to say when she was shocked, “Oofdah!”

Good old Glenn Greenwald: He unleashes a counterattack on Fred Hiatt, author of the WaPo editorial, along with Michael Ledeen, in this morning’s post, Fred Hiatt, Michael Ledeen and the "bomb Iran crazies": “Fred Hiatt today unleashes an Editorial Page attack on Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency whom Hiatt labels ‘the Rogue Regulator.’ Bizarrely, though revealingly, Hiatt begins by complaining that ‘Mr. ElBaradei was lionized by opponents of the Iraq war for debunking Bush administration charges that Saddam Hussein had restarted his nuclear program before the 2003 invasion’ -- as though having been right about Iraq, and thus admired by 'by opponents of the Iraq war,' is a sign of low credibility."

Greenwald zeroes in on Michael Ledeen, describing him as the "...preeminent and most highly regarded right-wing expert on Iran...who has devoted his life to engineering 'regime change' in Iran." Read the rest of Greenwald's post if you're a Ledeen watcher, as I am.