Iran is not engaged in nuclear weapons research,
and not an "imminent threat" requiring military action, according to
Mohamed El Baradei, former director of the International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA) and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize for efforts to
prevent nuclear proliferation.

"Anybody who is calling for a military solution for the Iranian issue
is crazy, because you will get a much worse situation than what you
have," Mr. El Baradei said.

"Nobody today is vouching that Iran is developing nuclear weapons. I
think even the U.S. intelligence [agencies], as you probably know, say
that Iran stopped any nuclear weapons research -- assuming that they
had done that -- in 2003," he said.

"That still continues to be the assessment of the U.S. intelligence
agencies, all the intelligence agencies. No, there is no imminent
threat that requires"  military action.

Mr. El Baradei made the remarks during a presentation here in Bangkok
on Monday (February 11) at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of
Thailand.

Mr. El Baradei, an Egyptian, won became a Nobel laureate in 2005, and
left the IAEA in 2009.

In his presentation, Mr. El Baradei warned, "a computer error...might
lead us to get into a nuclear holocaust.

"Or, God forbid, some of these extremist groups get their hands on a
nuclear weapon or even a powerful radioactive source.  They
[extremists] have no return address, and deterrence for them has no
meaning. They are ready to die, anyway."

He criticized double standards imposed by countries which already
possess nuclear weapons.

"Some countries are keeping their weapons, and telling everybody else:
'You cannot even touch the knowledge of nuclear technology'," he said.

"Why do we continue to believe that we can continue to rely on nuclear
weapons, and be surprised that other countries will eventually go and
get them?

"How you could have a system that is sustainable that is based on,
'Some are more equal than others'?  I mean, it doesn't work."

He is "not optimistic" about current proliferation.

"All the weapons-states are modernizing their nuclear weapons."

As a result of their continual upgrading, "you invite other countries
-- or in areas of conflict, if they are squeezed -- to try to go for
nuclear weaponry.  That's also a worry.

"The more nuclear weapons states you have, the more the odds that they
will be used," Mr. El Baradei said.

"I'm trying to say we need to rush into nuclear disarmament."

Israel secretly possesses a nuclear arsenal even though the Jewish
state refuses to confirm it, he said.

"I think that everybody takes it that Israel has a nuclear weapons
arsenal.  I cannot vouch for it because during my time of the agency
[IAEA], we did not inspect.

"Israel is not party to the nuclear proliferation treaty. They keep
this policy of ambiguity. But still, everybody takes it that they do
have it."

Instability on the Korean peninsula could result in a nuclear war, but
similar dangers exist throughout the world, even in America, he said.

"You don't know where the fault line is going to be. You worry that
you don't have a good command and control system in certain areas,
where you see the government is not in full control.

"Where you have a regime that is paranoid that it could come under
attack -- like North Korea -- you worry about it. But at the end of
the day, you worry about every country that operates nuclear weapons,
even in the U.S.," he said.

"Mistakes do happen in the best systems, so you worry about all of them."

Nuclear bombs will hopefully not be used during the current fight over
Ukraine, because senior leaders on all sides know the horrors such
devastation can cause, he said.

"Ukraine, of course right now, nobody talks about that. But you do not
want the conflict to escalate because...you have NATO and you have
Russia," which are both capable of launching nuclear weapons.

"You do not want to see any escalation that anybody would think of
using nuclear weapons [because of Ukraine]. And I don't think, at
least hopefully, either NATO or Russia are thinking in that direction.
They understand the implications of that."