Charles Johnson over at the indispensible Little Green Footballs posts today regarding Mohamed ElBaradei's upcoming acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize and labels him a "blind, toothless nuclear watchdog."

While I certainly agree that ElBaradei's IAEA has not done as good a job with regard to Iran as I might wish, I cannot agree with Charles' characterization in this regard. Given the state of world opinion on this issue, which is largely negative thanks to our now completely discredited intelligence record in connection with weapons of mass distruction, and given that the IAEA serves many masters, most of whom do not share the United States' view of the Iranian situation, I am actually surprised that ElBaradei has been able to keep his eye on the ball as much as he has.

The only thing that I can conclude about the IAEA's continued hawkishness on the Iranian issue is that there exists--behind the scenes--a widely shared view among the world's power about the dangerousness of an Iranian bomb. This is very good news for the U.S., for Israel and for the world.

Of course, these other powers (who one suspects includes the U.K., Germany, France, Italy, India and, probably, China) are more than willing to let the U.S. stand alone out front since they have calculated that, given our national interest in the matter, we can do no less. So, once again, the U.S. carries water for the "international community" As has by now become depressingly customary, we will be expected to act and take all the blame for acting and will all the while be the target of intense criticism by those counting on us to save the day.