Author: K. Subrahmanyam
Publication: The Indian Express
Date: February 12, 2009
URL: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/the-great-deception/422349/
Introduction: This time the Pakistanis, for
reasons we are unable to guess as of now, appear to have decided to subject
the US to ridicule and openly defy them
The Pakistani media alleges that the release
of Dr A.Q. Khan from his house arrest is meant to comply with a widely popular
demand and also to demonstrate to the Pakistani public that the Zardari Government
is not subservient to the US. It has also highlighted that, of the two popular
demands - release of Khan from house arrest and restoration of former Chief
Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry to office - the Zardari government found it more
expedient to comply with the first one.
There is also speculation that this was timed
to coincide with the visit of Richard Holbrooke, special envoy to Pakistan
and Afghanistan. It could signify the likely Pakistani resistance to American
demands to intensify its military operations against the militants, or the
present defiance may be used to cover up Pakistani compliance with US demands.
It is not quite clear how Pakistan proposes to use this act of defiance to
its advantage in the days to come. There is no doubt, however, that this release
of Khan after a secret agreement with the government is a carefully planned
step in Pakistan's strategy.
First, it is meant as a rebuff to the US,
especially to the Bush administration, which swallowed General Musharraf's
story that Khan was solely responsible for Pakistani proliferation and the
successive governments and army chiefs of Pakistan had nothing to do with
that activity. With the high court publicly declaring that the case of proliferation
against Khan had not been substantiated and by allowing him, a pardoned self-confessed
proliferator, to conclude a secret agreement with the government, the present
Pakistani administration has deliberately absolved Khan of the charges leveled
against him by the Musharraf regime and has also called into question the
entire version put out by the Pakistani government in 2004. By getting a judicial
verdict that the charges against Khan are not substantiated, the Zardari administration
has exposed the gullibility of President Bush, the rest of the US administration
and various prestigious think-tanks. It is also a timely reminder to India
and the rest of the international community of the kind of games Pakistan
can play on the 26/11 terrorist dossier.
Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi
says Khan is history. What he does not tell the world is: if the present verdict
is to be ,accepted that the case of proliferation against Khan has not been
substantiated, how exactly did the illegal proliferation networks operate?
Qureshi does not challenge the fact of their operation. Who in Pakistan authorised
it? If the present administration of Pakistan repudiates the Musharraf version
in regard to proliferation then what kind of credibility can the rest of the
world place in its assurances? The very same General Khalid Kidwai who was
reported to have obtained the confession from Khan is still heads the Nuclear
Command Authority. How do the Americans profess to accept his assurances on
nuclear safety even as the confession he obtained from Khan is called unsusbstantiated?
President Obama's hero, Abraham Lincoln, said
that some people might be deceived for all time, all people could deceived
for some time, but you can't fool all the people all the time. US permissiveness
towards Pakistan's nuclear arsenal today should reflect that. Pakistan were
able to take the past US establishments for a ride mainly because successive
administrations shielded Pakistani nuclear proliferation efforts from their
own people.
For example, the former Dutch prime minister,
Ruud Lubbers, disclosed in radio and TV interviews in August 2005 that Khan
was twice detained by the Dutch authorities on charges of nuclear espionage
but was allowed to go free upon CIA intervention. And Zbigniew Brzezinski
says now that, by July 1979, when President Carter signed the directive for
US-Pakistani joint covert operations in Afghanistan against the Parcham-Khalq
regime before the Soviet intervention in that country, the US was prepared
to pay the price of being permissive of Pakistani proliferation. This understanding
was confirmed when a Pakistani delegation under Agha Shahi met the US secretary
of state, Alexander Haig, in 1982. The Pressler amendment was sponsored by
the Reagan administration to forestall the proposed Glenn-Cranston legislation
capping Pakistani uranium enrichment. Through the Pressler amendment Pakistan
was enabled to move up to nuclear explosive capability, short of crossing
it.
When Pakistan actually assembled the bomb
in 1987 a CIA operative, Richard Barlow, brought it out. Instead of being
appreciated he was punished. The the Bush Sr. administration shielded the
nuclear test conducted on May 26, 1990 for Pakistan by China on its test site
and obfuscated the development by sending the Robert Gates mission to defuse
nonexistent Indo-Pak nuclear tension. (This is disclosed in a recent book,
"Nuclear Express", by Thomas Reed and Danny Stillman.) The Clinton
administration maintained for six years that they were unable to make a finding
on the Chinese supply of nuclear-capable missiles to Pakistan even after the
Pakistanis admitted the receipt of the missiles. The US white-washed Chinese
proliferation to Pakistan through supply of 5000 ring-magnets for their centrifuges,
accepting the totally implausible story that the supplies were made without
the knowledge of Chinese central authorities.
Therefore President Bush's acceptance of Khan
being a lone operator followed 25 years of US permissiveness about proliferation.
However this time Pakistanis, for reasons
we are unable to guess as of now, appear to have decided to subject the US
to ridicule and openly defy them. How will this administration manage to reassure
America and the world when the the US establishment bought the story of Khan
being a lone rogue proliferator and now the world is being told that is totally
unsubstantiated? There is widespread agreement among American analysts that,
if at all a weapon of mass destruction were to be used against the US, it
would originate from Pakistan. If Khan is not the lone proliferator then it
would mean proliferation has wide and high-level support in the Pakistani
establishment. In such circumstances even if the network has been dismantled,
why can it not be revived? It will be useful to discuss these issues with
Holbrooke as part of the regional approach. As Lincoln said, all Americans
can no longer be deceived for all time.
- The writer is a senior defence analyst express@expressindia.com
