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Pakistan covers its bets on the
US
By Syed Saleem Shahzad
KARACHI - With the US playing a carrot and
stick game and Pakistan playing hide and seek over
its nuclear program - past and present - the two
sides are developing a relationship based on
mutual interests, although Pakistan is developing
alternative choices.
The US is increasing
pressure on Pakistan over its proliferation
history, seeking to establish conclusive evidence
that Iran is committed to a nuclear weapons
program, while at the same time offering Islamabad
- a key ally in the "war on terror" - inducements
such as F-16s fighters.
Pressure on
Pakistan has risen since the arrest last year of
Asher Karni, a 51-year-old Hungarian-born Israeli
and South African businessman, in the US on
charges of violating American export laws. He was
accused of exporting "triggered spark gap"
devices. These are used for medical purposes, but
can also, when installed into an enriched uranium
casing, ignite a nuclear explosion.
During
interrogation Karni revealed links with an
underworld mafia operating in Pakistan and India.
Despite giving details of unlawful shipments to
India, no charges were brought against any Indian,
but Asia Times Online contacts say that his
evidence will be used to target Pakistan.
In the coming days the US is expected to
formally ask Pakistan to help bring a Pakistani
businessmen, Humayun Khan, to the US for
investigation. Karni came up with Khan's name in
connection with arranging shipments to Pakistan.
Investigations will also be reopened into
Pakistani scientist Bashiruddin Mehmood.
In late 2001, US officials investigating
the activities of Osama bin Laden discovered that
the al-Qaeda head had contacted some Pakistani
nuclear experts for assistance in making a small
nuclear device. US officials sought two veteran
Pakistani nuclear scientists, in particular,
Bashiruddin Mehmood and Abdul Majid, for
interrogation. The two admitted to working in
Afghanistan in recent years, but said they had
only been providing "charitable assistance" to
Afghans.
Old wine in new
bottles
Since news of Pakistan's nuclear
proliferation officially broke last year with the
father of the country's program, Dr Abdul Qadeer
Khan, admitting to proliferation, albeit in a
"personal capacity", the US has laid siege to
Pakistan's nuclear program. It has been learned
that before a major non-proliferation treaty (NPT)
conference in May, new pressures will be mounted
exclusively on Pakistan to sign the NPT, which
would allow the UN's watchdog, the International
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), to closely inspect
Pakistan's nuclear sites. However, Pakistan has
officially refused to sign the NPT.
Up to
a point, Pakistan has extended maximum cooperation
to international agencies and provided them with
evidence and material sources to investigate the
nuclear underworld. However, Pakistan has
point-blank refused to allow any external
investigation into Khan (who is under house
arrest), former chief of army staff Mirza Aslam
Beg and former Pakistani president Ghulam Ishaq
Khan. Instead, Pakistan has passed on details of
interviews with these people to concerned
international authorities, including the IAEA and
US authorities.
Pakistan's strategic
circles are now debating how to deal with demands
for further assistance.
A case in point is
Bashiruddin Mehmood. He was linked with the
Taliban government in Afghanistan to develop
agro-projects in Afghanistan through his
non-governmental organization, but he was thought
to have assisted al-Qaeda in acquiring nuclear
weapons. He was immediately taken into custody. On
US demands, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation
kept Bashiruddin Mehmood at a private location in
Pakistan for interrogation. He was released after
no links were found to developing nuclear weapons
for al-Qaeda.
In the meantime, US agencies
conducted investigations and inquiries with
al-Qaeda detainees, and recovered documents from
Kabul and Jalalabad. They concluded that
al-Qaeda's focus to acquire nuclear material and
weapons was on renegade scientists of Russia and
the Central Asian Republics. Nevertheless, their
focus remained on Pakistan, and they still want to
pursue this avenue.
A similar US mindset
appeared when Iran's possible nuclear weapons
program came under the spotlight.
Certainly, elements of nuclear cooperation
have been traced between Pakistan and Iran, but
indigenous Iranian efforts and non-Pakistani
sources are also involved. Recently, the Institute
for Science and International Security, a
Washington-based anti-nuclear proliferation group,
divulged that Iran had established a facility
called Kalaye Electric in 1995. The Persian name,
which means "electric goods", was apparently
chosen to mislead people about the real purpose of
the site.
A US news agency quoted the
institute's deputy director, Corey Hinderstein,
who researched the Iranian site, as saying, "They
have been using the site to research, develop and
manufacture gas centrifuges for uranium
enrichment." The centrifuges can also be used for
enriching weapons-grade uranium. Hinderstein
categorically mentioned that Iran also had
"developed an indigenous capability to manufacture
centrifuges". The fact is well documented by
international agencies, yet all the focus of
investigations is on the Pakistani side.
The great Asian game
At a time
when the US, China and India have well-defined
economic interests, strategic experts in
Rawalpindi once again cling to their own theory of
"greater Central Asia" with regard to the
strategic depth that they feel will help them
against US and Indian designs in the region.
In the past, Pakistan was obsessed with
cultivating former Soviet Muslim states through
its Islamic ideology and establishing a
"brotherhood", including Afghanistan. After
September 11, everything was turned upside down,
notably Pakistan having to abandon the Taliban,
which it had nurtured.
In hurriedly
arranged visits, Musharraf has recently not only
signed agreements on anti-terror with former
Soviet Muslim states, he has also handed over
several operators arrested in Pakistan. Several
military deals are secretly in the pipeline,
including joint exercises and the sale and
purchase of military hardware. Pakistan has
already handed over a map to Central Asian
Republic states for a trade route, of which
Gwadar's warm waters will be the centrifugal
point. (See China's pearl
in Pakistan's waters, Mar 4.)
The pace of these developments between the
Central Asian states and Pakistan has been so
rapid over the past three months that the US has
been stunned.
A sop of F-16s was dished
out to Pakistan, while at the same time pressure
was renewed on exposing its proliferation mafia,
and with a revived possible al-Qaeda link.
Asia Times Online has learned that
Islamabad will continue to defy US pressure, while
attempting to minimize its dependency on the US -
even though the US still needs Pakistan assistance
to keep Iran on the hook, and the Taliban
resistance in Afghanistan under constant pressure.
Conventional wisdom has it that Pakistan
has to rely on US aid, but its economic managers
are drawing up an aggressive strategy to lessen
this reliance. They have prepared a road map for
privatization over the next five years in which
major national assets, including in the power
sector, telecom and even the national airline,
will be sold off. They also plan to lay the
foundations for complete liberalization leading to
a full market economy, which will generate huge
revenues for the state without sharing any
liabilities. In terms of this grand plan, mostly
Gulf-based companies will be encouraged to invest.
Several have already arrived, while many more will
come.
"Leave it to me and I will not let
Pakistan surrender to the US or India." President
General Pervez Musharraf pledged to Kashmiri
leaders in a briefing in Rawalpindi recently,
after which they all came out with smiles on their
faces.
What Pakistan has developed as an
alternative strategy to wean itself from the US is
a gamble, whether in the field of economics or in
the field of courting former Soviet states. But
for the time being, it has forced the US to hang
around on Pakistan's terms.
Syed
Saleem Shahzad, Bureau Chief, Pakistan, Asia
Times Online. He can be reached at saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com
(Copyright 2005 Asia Times Online Ltd. All
rights reserved. Please contact us for information
on sales, syndication and republishing.) |
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