Less than two weeks before the United States started the Iraq war in March 2003, Mohamed ElBaradei reported to the United Nations that his inspectors “have to date found no evidence or plausible indication of the revival of a nuclear weapons program in Iraq.”

That didn’t keep President Bush from deciding to invade. But even the U.S. found no evidence of weapons of mass destruction.

So Mr. ElBaradei, the chief U.N. nuclear inspector, enjoys credibility because he was right. Last week he offered good advice to France, the United States and other nations that worry about the possibility of Iran developing nuclear weapons.

“I would not talk about any use of force,” Mr. ElBaradei said. “There are rules on how to use force, and I would hope that everybody would have gotten the lesson after the Iraq situation, where 700,000 innocent civilians have lost their lives on the suspicion that a country has nuclear weapons.”

So far, the United States is taking a reasonable position about Iran: refusing to rule out the use of force, but trying to solve problems through diplomatic and economic pressures.

Let’s hope those in Washington who were trigger-happy about Iraq have learned their lesson.

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