Time & Perspective Quote by Mohamed ElBaradei

Technocratic caution can be its own kind of power move, and ElBaradei knows it. The sentence reads like dry process-speak, but it’s doing heavy diplomatic lifting: slowing the tempo, narrowing the claims, and quietly reclaiming authority for verification over spectacle. “Whatever declaration we will get” is a deliberate demotion of rhetoric to paperwork. It’s also a warning to every actor in the room - states, hawks, media - that declarations aren’t truth; they’re submissions that must survive inspection.

The key phrase is “comprehensive and accurate.” It sounds neutral, even boring, but it’s a trapdoor for half-measures. Comprehensive blocks the classic maneuver of selective disclosure (“we told you something”). Accurate blocks the other maneuver: laundering falsehoods through official channels. Verification becomes not an afterthought but the definition of legitimacy, and that matters in the post-Iraq WMD era where the cost of getting it wrong isn’t embarrassment; it’s war.

Then comes the almost breezy payoff: “So, that would take care of the past activities.” The subtext is strategic compartmentalization. He’s offering a path to closure - not absolution, not amnesia, but a procedural way to settle what happened before and move the conversation to what comes next. It’s also boundary-setting for an inspectorate under pressure: our job is the record, not regime change; the instrument is evidence, not ideology. The intent is to turn “past activities” from a moral drama into an auditable file, because in international security, boredom is sometimes the safest outcome.