ElBaradei blasts Mideast policy 'failure'

[FarCenter]

AFP - Former UN nuclear chief Mohamed ElBaradei has warned the West's support of authoritarian regimes in the Middle East risks encouraging Islamic extremism, in an interview Thursday with a British paper.

"There is a need for re-evaluation," he told the Guardian newspaper.

"The idea that the only alternative to authoritarian regimes is Bin Laden and co is a fake one, yet continuation of current policies will make that prophecy come true."

ElBaradei, Egypt's most high-profile dissident who until the end of 2009 headed the International Atomic Energy Agency, said he saw "increasing radicalisation" in the Arab world.

"People feel repressed by their own governments, they feel unfairly treated by the outside world, they wake up in the morning and who do they see -- they see people being shot and killed, all Muslims from Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Sudan, Darfur."

Western policy in the region amounted to a "total failure", said ElBaradei, who returned to Cairo in February after stepping down as head of the nuclear watchdog.

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