By: Jim Taylor

Pakistan crumbles towards nuclear chaos


Forget the fear-mongering about Iran. Ignore the mutterings about the territorial ambitions of Turkey, Syria, or North Korea. The real rogue state is Pakistan. And Pakistan is rapidly crumbling into chaos.

North Korea exploded a feeble nuclear bomb. The White House claims Iran is developing nuclear weapons.

        But it was Pakistan that sold nuclear technology to both of them. And to Libya. Delivered by jets of the Pakistan Air Force. In what journalist Robert Scheer called “the most extravagantly irresponsible nuclear arms bazaar the world has ever seen.”

        Shortly before September 11, 2001, two senior Pakistani officials – Bashiruddin Mahmood and Chaudry Abdul Majeed – personally visited Osama bin Laden to advise him about making, or obtaining, nuclear arms.

Pakistan itself has over 50 nuclear weapons, hidden around the country – including the mountainous frontier provinces controlled by pro-Taliban tribal warlords.

        As Jonathan Schell writes, “The problem is not so much that the locks on nuclear installations will be broken or picked as that those with keys to the locks will simply switch allegiances…”



Choosing sides

 Right after September 11, 2001, Pakistan’s Intelligence Chief, Lt. Gen. Mahmoud Ahmed, was summoned to meet with U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage. Armitage told him flatly, “You are either 100 per cent with us or 100 per cent against us.”

Pakistan chose to retain its status as the U.S. ally in the Indo-Asian sub-continent – a role it has held ever since India declared itself neutral during the Cold War. From Washington’s xenophobic perspective, neutrality meant India had tilted towards Russia. Pakistan, in its continuing clashes with India, automatically became the West’s beachhead.

        Geographically, Pakistan points deep into the heartlands of the former Soviet Union. It is still crucial to any pipeline feeding oil through Afghanistan to the Indian Ocean.

        To sustain its Asian foothold, the U.S. has poured $10 billion of military aid into Pakistan over the last six years. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte called Musharraf “an indispensable ally… vital to our interests.”

        Now the U.S. plans to send American trainers to recruit tribal leaders to fight against Al Queda – additional cost, about $350 million.



Divided loyalties

That alliance has turned Pakistan into an explosion waiting to happen.

        During the Russian occupation of Afghanistan, Pakistan actively supported the Afghan rebels. Pakistan was one of only three nations in the world that officially recognized the Taliban regime.

        There were, I understand, more madrassas – schools for indoctrinating boys in hard-line Islam – in Pakistan than in Afghanistan. They still operate with impunity.

        Now Pakistan is expected to hunt down its former allies?

        Not freakin’ likely.

        When General Pervez Musharraf declared a national state of emergency in Pakistan, he used the right words to placate his American allies. He claimed the state of emergency was necessary to control an ominous rise in right-wing Islamic militancy, especially in the rugged northwest of his country.

        But he has used his emergency powers exclusively against left-wing political dissenters. Prime ministerial candidate Benazir Bhutto has been placed under house arrest several times. Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry was fired. Thousands of lawyers, teachers, judges, and women – especially women, judging by TV news clips – were arrested, beaten, hauled off in paddy wagons.

        But can you name one Taliban leader arrested in the crackdown? I didn’t think so.



Addicted to power

There’s an old saying: “Actions speak louder than words.” Musharraf’s actions reveal that his state of emergency has nothing to do with battling terrorists. The only threat is to his own political power.

        He seized power in a military coup, in 1999, when the prime minister at the time, Nawaz Sharif, tried to fire him as army chief-of-staff. To stay in power, Musharraf has suspended the country’s constitution, declared himself president twice, stifled the judiciary, and has now staged a second military coup to prolong his first coup.

        Under international pressure, Musharraf released 5,634 pro-democracy activists, and promised to resign as armed forces commander. The Supreme Court, already purged of dissenting voices, dismissed legal challenges to Musharraf’s continuing presidency on Thursday.

        But as a civilian president – especially if the promised January elections produce a hostile prime minister in either Benazir Bhutto or Nawaz Sharif – Musharraf will lose some control over the army, the only thing that keeps him in power.

        And Pakistan is likely to fragment. The country’s capital, Islamabad, already exerts minimal control over Islamic extremists among the hill tribes bordering Afghanistan. Outside of the urban centres of Lahore and Karachi, the people’s emotions lie with their Islamic brethren, not with Western sympathizers.

        As the 9/11 Commission noted, “Pakistan helped nurture the Taliban,” and “Many in the government have sympathized with or provided support to the extremists.”



Historic animosities

Because those “extremists” are Islamic. And Pakistan cannot forget its origins.

        A long-ago schoolmate of mine recalls travelling by train in 1947 from northern India to Karachi, Pakistan’s main port. India and Pakistan were splitting. Moslems fled to Pakistan the way Jews later flocked to Israel.

        The train’s route passed through border territory. At each stop, bands of religious fanatics dragged members of the other faith off the train and beat or slaughtered them, outside my schoolmate’s window. At this stop, Hindus. At the next, Moslems.

        Fifty years later, my schoolmate still found it hard to talk about.

        Historic animosities run deep.

        As a showpiece for the advantages of Western ways, Pakistan has failed miserably. Democracy is no closer now than it was 60 years ago. Nor is prosperity. Pakistan’s per capita income, its literacy rates, its life expectancies are all lower than India’s; infant mortality rates and defence spending are higher.

        I consider it almost inevitable that terrorist elements will get hold of some of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons, eventually. The only question is whether they will choose to use those weapons against their traditional enemy of India; or against America, viewed as home of a crusade against Islamic nations; or against their own quisling government.

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Copyright © 2007 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups permitted; all other rights reserved.
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