The confession by the father of Pakistan’s own nuclear deterrent, that he passed nuclear secrets to Iran, Libya and North Korea, is startling. Pakistan had always vigorously denied rumors from Western intelligence agencies that such a thing had occurred.
Abdul Qadeer Khan’s admission therefore represents a deep embarrassment to the Pakistani government of Pervez Musharraf. Public sentiment was strong that this brilliant scientist should be pardoned, as he has now been. For many ordinary Pakistanis, he is a hero, because the program that he led, in their view, enabled Pakistan to confront its larger and more powerful neighbor India, on effectively equal terms. Even since the horrific atom bomb detonations over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, almost 59 years ago, the enduring power of nuclear weaponry has rested on its deterrent effect.
Yet what Khan has done may be damaging to Pakistan’ interests. No country can afford to share its nuclear secrets with others, especially if they are neighbors. Iran might one day be a potential threat. That danger would be considerably increased if Tehran acquires nuclear weaponry thanks to the secrets handed it by Khan.
That Libya was also included in his handover of secrets might create the notion that Khan acted to provide the Islamic world with nuclear protection, that this was all about an “Islamic bomb”. But North Korea hardly fits in with that picture. It must seem therefore that Khan was motivated either by money or by the same questionable principle that drove a few US nuclear scientists in the 1940s to leak details of the program to the Soviet Union, believing that only through “nuclear balance” could the awesome power of the weapon they had helped create be tamed.
Libya’s abandonment of its WMD program and opening of its research centers to outside inspection would almost certainly have revealed Khan’s complicity. Indeed given that the Libyans have already been telling the Americans everything about it, there is every reason to suspect that Washington had been formally apprised by Tripoli of Khan’s activities.
There is the air of a done deal about Khan’s admission and now his pardon. Was it at Washington’s prompting? Was Khan’s confession designed to short-circuit the more dramatic revelation of a Pakistani role by nuclear inspectors examining Libya’s nuclear weapon’s program? America does not want to see Musharraf weakened. He is too important a part of Bush’s war against the remnants of the Taleban and Al-Qaeda in eastern Afghanistan. Maybe knowing this emboldened the Pakistani leader yesterday to refuse UN supervision of its nuclear arsenal.
But did Khan give secrets to other countries? The head of the UN’s atomic agency, Mohamed El-Baradei, has said that he believes the scientist’s admissions might only be the tip of an iceberg.
It is understandable that Pakistanis are hurrying to defend the man who they believe has done so much to help defend them. But the wider ramifications of what Khan has done are altogether harder to defend, particularly as regards North Korea, an unstable, erratic and unpredictable regime. If this renegade state ever unleashes a nuclear attack against its southern neighbor, Khan’s actions will be seen as unpardonable.
