WATCH OUT FOR THIS GENT – AT 8:56 A.M. ET:  The figure being most talked about as leading a coalition of protesters into a new era for Egypt is Mohamed ElBaradei.  You may remember him in his starring role as head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Some of our best journalists are taking a look at ElBaradei today, and what they see they don't like.  Claudia Rossett, long one of our leading foreign-affairs journalists, sums it up at Pajamas Media:

As head of the IAEA, ElBaradei often looked like a shill for Iran — repeatedly glossing over obvious signs of Iran’s nuclear weapons program, obfuscating the realities, and delaying action. In the Jerusalem Post, Caroline Glick gives a good rundown of how, in the U.S. effort to corral Iran’s nuclear program, ElBaradei was not part of the answer, but part of the problem. Glick also describes ElBaradei’s cozy relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood — progenitor of al-Qaeda and Hamas — quoting him as giving a recent interview to Der Spiegel in which he claimed the Muslim Brotherhood has “not committed any acts of violence in five decades.”

In 2009, as I reported at the time here on Pajamas Media, ElBaradei most inappropriately used his platform as erstwhile “neutral” head of the IAEA to bully the BBC for dropping plans to broadcast a fund-raiser for terrorist-controlled Gaza. As for his 2005 Nobel prize, bestowed despite a tenure that spanned Pakistan’s breakout nuclear test, North Korea’s nuclear buildup to its 2006 first nuclear test, and Iran’s lively pursuit of the bomb, this was one of those Norwegian choices that had nothing to do with peace, and plenty to do with political machinations. Coming in 2005, at the height of the Oil-for-Food scandal, ElBaradei’s Nobel looked more like a sop to shore up a UN sinking in its own sleaze than an award that should inspire respect.

Egypt desperately needs honest, genuinely democratic leaders to emerge from the current inferno. ElBaradei may look smooth and convenient, with his UN past, his Nobel, and his longtime skills at self-promotion. But please, not ElBaradei.

COMMENT:  The sad fact is, though, that ElBaradei is just the kind of man who could win international "respect" in the parlors of Europe and Georgetown. 

In addition to the information presented by Claudia, please note that ElBaradei had a hostile relationship with the Bush administration, which tried to prevent him from being reappointed head of the IAEA.  He is not seen as a friend of the United States.  We wonder whether that bothers Obama, who seems totally lost in the current crisis.

February 1, 2011