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The
article below is by Yossef Bodansky, July 98. Article located at:
http://freeman.io.com/m_online/jul98/bodansky.htm
On May 28, 1998, when the jubilant masses poured to the
streets to cheer Pakistan's string of nuclear tests, they shouted "Allah
Akbar!". They paraded, and celebrated around, models of the Hatf
- Pakistan's tactical nuclear missile - marked "Islamic bomb". In
Friday prayers, Mullahs stressed that the tests are a "triumph for
Islam." Completely ignored were President Nawaz Sharief's explanations
that these nuclear tests were Pakistan's reaction to the Indian threat. And
herein - in the stark difference between action and the politicians' rhetoric -
the quandary lies.
Indeed, as Pakistan embarked on its series of nuclear tests,
the brinkmanship and crisis-generation policies intensified. The Pakistani
propaganda machine spun the yarn of convoluted Israeli-Indian and now also
American conspiracies against Pakistan and its "Islamic Bomb." No
event was left out of this intensifying incitement of terror. For example, when
anti-nuclear Baluchi students hijacked the PIA plane to protests Islamabad's
policies, Pakistani "sources" fed the media with allegations that ISI
had uncovered a RAW-CIA-Mossad conspiracy against Pakistan of which the
hijacking was a small part. And so, the isolated hijacking incident has become
yet another component in the slide toward the "forthcoming Indian-Israeli
attack" Islamabad is still anticipating. India's and Israel's denials of
such plans and their calm reaction to the Pakistani nuclear tests and related
rhetoric have so far had no tangible impact on Islamabad's policies.
This is not because Islamabad still fears the Israeli-Indian
attack, if it ever really did, but because of Islamabad's requisite to
integrate the dramatic development of Pakistan becoming a declared nuclear power
into the volatile polity of the Hub of Islam. Hence, an inevitable outcome of
this process is the return of Pakistan as a predominant leader of the Muslim
World, and particularly the Hub of Islam. Islamabad is already capitalizing on
its unique notoriety to build support as the sole Muslim nuclear power. After
all Pakistan's has always been the "Islamic Bomb," and no amount of
post-factum denials by Islamabad is going to change this. Indeed, this aspect
of the Pakistani nuclear testing has been emphasized in both popular
celebrations and mosque sermons in both Pakistan and throughout the Hub of
Islam.
Only when the pressure from the West over the Islamic'
aspect of the Pakistani nuclear tests, and with it the threat of protracted
sanctions, mounted, did Islamabad issued a denial - optimized for the Western
audience. "Nothing gives me more offense than the use of the phrase
?Islamic bomb,'" retorted Tariq Altaf, a Foreign Ministry spokesman.
"There is no such thing as an Islamic bomb. This is a weapon for the
self-defense of Pakistan - period. There is no question of transferring the
technology to anybody. This is deterrence for Pakistan alone." However,
Pakistan's own record in pursuing its nuclear weaponry flatly contradicts
Altaf's assertions and assurances.
*
In its dogged pursuit of military nuclear capabilities
Pakistan has not only enjoyed active support from Arab states, particularly
Libya (mainly funds and access to clandestinely obtained West European
technologies and materiel) and Saudi Arabia (mainly funds and access to US-made
super-computers), but it provided active support to other Muslim nuclear
programs. In fact, Pakistan shared data and expertise with the two leading
nuclear programs in the Muslim World - Iraq's and Iran's.
Pakistan's contributions to the nuclear programs of the
Islamic Republic of Iran date back to the early 1980s. In 1984, for example, a
Nuclear Research Institute was opened in Isfahan with technical assistance from
France and Pakistan. In February 1986, Pakistan offered to train Iranian
nuclear scientists in return for financial support for Pakistan's own nuclear
program. The Iranians were trained on Chinese equipment. Subsequently, in June
1990, Tehran signed a contract with the PRC for the supply of another reactor for
the Isfahan Nuclear Research Institute. The Isfahan institute opened the door
to Iran's short-cut to the production of its own bomb.
Meanwhile, Dr. Abdus Qadir Khan, the father of the Pakistani
bomb, attended a high level meeting of Iran's leading nuclear scientists held
in the Amir Kabir College in January 1987. He visited both Tehran and Bushehr
to assess the Iranian nuclear potential and discuss future cooperation with the
Iranian leadership. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, then Iran's president, also took part
in the conference. Soon afterwards, Iran and Pakistan signed an agreement on
technical cooperation in military nuclear fields. Two senior Iranian
scientists, Sayyid Reza and Hadi Rambashahr, went to Kahuta. They were later
joined there by few Iranians and began organizing a training program. Within a
year, 31 Iranian nuclear specialists were sent to Pakistan, mainly Kahuta, to
join this program and receive advance training. These Iranians are involved in
several key aspects of weapon building including Uranium enrichment and
Plutonium extraction.
There was a corresponding progress in Iran's nuclear
technological capabilities. In 1988, the installations in the Amir Kabir
College, most likely the German-Argentinian equipment, were already capable of
extracting some Plutonium. In early-1989, Iran began "producing the fuel
required for the production of atomic weapons," using materials and
chemicals purchased in Japan as late as 1987. In late-1989, Pakistan started
helping Iran to build a reactor for the extraction of Plutonium. In the early
1990s, Iran was also expected to become the first export customer to Pakistan's
new reactor of indigenous design - achieved with extensive Chinese assistance.
Speaking in an exhibition of Chinese electronic equipment in Karachi on 16
January 1991, Munir Ahmad Khan, the Chairman of Pakistan's Atomic Energy
Commission, declared that "Pakistan has achieved some extraordinary
success in the manufacturing of nuclear fuel and is now manufacturing a nuclear
reactor and a power generating reactor." He added that "China's
backing for Pakistan's peaceful nuclear efforts is encouraging and
praiseworthy."
Although of a lesser magnitude, Pakistan's support for the
Iraqi military nuclear program might have been more decisive. In early 1990,
once committed to the instigation of a cataclysmic event that would shock the
Middle East and ensure Saddam Hussein's prominence - at the time Baghdad was
still wavering between attacking Israel and liberating Kuwait - Baghdad
resolved to complete the acquisition of one or a few nuclear weapons in order
to have a rudimentary deterrence.
Toward this end, senior Iraqi intelligence and weapons
program officials made a series of clandestine visits to Pakistan in the Spring
and early Summer of 1990, virtually until the invasion of Kuwait. They launched
a series of efforts to buy anything - from nuclear technology to nuclear
weapons. At first, Saddam Hussein's emissaries were rebuffed by official
Islamabad. However, the Iraqis launched a supposedly secret initiative to
recruit, through both bribes and capitalizing on Islamist sentiments, some of
Pakistan's leading experts. One of the Iraqi documents retrieved after the war
includes a scrawled footnote describing an offer made to Iraqi intelligence by
an unidentified Pakistani offering to establish contacts with "senior
figures in Pakistan's nuclear programme who were willing to help President
Saddam Hussein's regime to manufacture a bomb." Pakistani Intelligence -
the ISI - was aware of these efforts from the beginning for some of those
approached notified them. It did not take long for the ISI to discover that the
Iraqis were organizing a procurement network relying on Islamist activists. At
first Islamabad provided tacit, though deniable, support for the Iraqi effort
that was then "apparently run from the embassy," in the words of an
ISI senior officer. This effort seemed to have come to an end when Iraq invaded
Kuwait and Pakistan sided with the US-led coalition.
However, alarmed by the prospects of an US/Western hegemony
over the Hub of Islam as a result of an overwhelming victory over Iraq,
Islamabad opened back channels to Baghdad offering to assist in deterring the
anticipated war. The Pakistani offers ranged from offers to mediate an
honorable end to the crisis to a last ditch effort to enable Iraq acquire
nuclear weapons and deterrence. According to an October 6, 1990, memorandum
from Section B.15 of Iraqi Intelligence to Section S.15 of the Nuclear-Weapons
Directorate, Baghdad had just received a proposal from "Pakistani
scientist Dr Abd-al-Qadeer Khan" to help Iraq "manufacture a nuclear
weapon." This memorandum was retrieved by the UN and confirmed by Iraqi
officials who claimed they had rejected the offer because they suspected it was
an American sting. Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan dismissed as "totally false and
baseless" both the memorandum and any other form of involvement in
discussions with the Iraqis. Nevertheless, there remains unresolved the source
of the Iraqi technology for gas centrifuges for uranium enrichment, and
particularly the self-confidence that led Baghdad commit to a major
installation in al-Furat even before test and evaluation was completed in
al-Tuwaitha Nuclear Research Center. Centrifuges are Dr. Khan's main expertise
and he recently stressed the centrality of uranium enrichment to the
sophistication and might of the just tested Pakistani nuclear weapons.
Thus, given this track record, it is safe to assume that
Islamabad will continue to participate in Islamic and Arab strategic programs. Indeed,
Islamabad's subsequent highlighting of its confrontation with, and standing up
to, the Israeli-Indian threats and anti-Muslim conspiracies has already created
expectations for nuclear Pakistan to play a strategic role in the Hub of Islam
as a nuclear power. In the longer term, more and more Muslim states will
gravitate toward Pakistan. Islamabad's audacious gambit will thus result in the
further consolidation of the militant Islamist faction of the Islamic Bloc
within the Trans Asian Axis that will challenge US presence in the Middle East
and Persian Gulf.
*
Meanwhile, this process has already begun. It is most
significant that the first foreign dignitary to arrive in Islamabad was Kamal
Kharrazi, the Iranian Foreign Minister. Although Iran and Pakistan have been
feuding on spheres of influence in Afghanistan and over Tehran's support for
militant Shiites in Pakistan, Tehran was the first to express whole hearted
support for Islamabad in the name of Islamic solidarity. Having lived for long
under the shadow of Israel's nuclear threat, Kharrazi declared, Muslims all
over the world "feel confident" because a fellow Islamic nation has
crossed the nuclear threshold. "Over the world, Muslims are happy that
Pakistan has this capability." Kharrazi also endorsed Islamabad's position
that India's test left Pakistan no choice but to test as well. "As a
matter of its national security and to create a balance in the region,"
Pakistan was obliged to respond in kind.
Similarly, conservative Arab regimes have no doubt about the
anti- American implications of the Pakistani bomb. For example, the Saudi-
owned al-Sharq al-Awsat wrote that many Muslim nations would
"release a sigh of relief, while the blood will freeze in the veins of the
decision-making powers, especially Washington, after Pakistan entered the
nuclear club." This analysis is of significance because, when deliberating
on the reaction to the Indian nuclear testing, Islamabad consulted only with
the PRC, its closest ally, and Saudi Arabia. Specifically, Nawaz Sharief
communicated with Crown Prince Abdallah whose organ is the al-Sharq
al-Awsat . Similarly, the conservative and Islamist-leaning Ukaz
newspaper stressed that "the West and Israel still view Pakistan's nuclear
capabilities as an asset to the Arabs and Muslims in their eternal struggle
with Israel; thus, the West and Israel view the Pakistani nuclear tests as a
very serious development. In fact, Israel has announced more than once that it
may attack the Pakistani nuclear installations as it did with Iraq in 1981.
Moreover, there has been clear evidence over the past few days that India and
Israel have been cooperating on the nuclear level and that Israel has played a
significant role in India's recent nuclear explosions." In this, and
numerous similar articles, Riyadh endorsed the Pakistani testing and threat
analysis.
Other Islamist leaders not only supported the Pakistani
tests, but expected Pakistan to use its nuclear capabilities to further
all-Islamic causes. HAMAS leader Shaykh Ahmad Yassin hailed Pakistan's
nuclear capability as "an asset to the Arab and Muslim nations."
Khalid Baig of the Al-Balagh E-Zine elucidated for many:
"Pakistan will also be expected now to play a more active role in the
affairs of the Ummah. There was a time when Pakistan was actively
involved in such matters. Based on its newly acquired status, it will again
have to shoulder those responsibilities. It must not shy away from those
responsibilities. Rather it must enlarge its vision and its view of itself.
There is no sense in defining Pakistan's nuclear policy solely in terms of
India. Al-Aqsa is not a ?Palestinian mosque' and Jerusalem is not just
a Palestinian issue. Therefore, Israel cannot be just a Palestinian or Arab
problem. It is a problem for the entire Ummah and Pakistan must now be
willing to stand up to its responsibilities in this matter."
Meanwhile, other voices in the Arab World urge Pakistan to
contribute to the emergence of an Arab bomb. The Saudi Ukaz expects a
major strategic realignment in the Middle East as a result of the Pakistani
tests. "What is certain is that the recent developments in the Indian
sub-continent will leave their own effect on the Middle East developments and
will prompt several parties involved in the Middle East crisis to rearrange their
cards and to review their calculations for the forthcoming phase."
Similarly, the Islamist paper Al-Quds al-Arabi anticipated that the
Pakistani nuclearization would have a major impact in the Arab World. "The
main Arab states, especially Egypt, will feel intensely embarrassed on account
of Pakistan's possession of the first Islamic nuclear bomb, and its success in
achieving strategic balance with its adversary India, while these states have
failed to achieve the same balance with the Hebrew state... The possession of
nuclear arms is an introduction to taking on the leadership of the Islamic
World and having greater influence over most of the events and Islamic summits
that will be held in the future." Al-Quds al-Arabi urges the Arab
leaders to learn from Islamabad and to both make decisions and resist the US.
"The Arab states in confrontation with Israel should have striven to gain
possession of nuclear weapons, not only in order to liberate Palestine, but in
order to maintain their national security and neutralize the Israeli nuclear
weapons. ... The Arab states can still benefit from this Pakistani lesson at
more than one level and the Pakistani experience in the nuclear field is still
very important for any Arab state that wants to rebel against US and Israeli
domination and follow the path of military power and its requirements."
And even before the Arab World mobilizes to meet the nuclear
challenge, Pakistan is already assuming its leadership position. As the initial
impact of the Pakistani nuclear testing subsides, Islamabad is gradually
shouldering its responsibilities as the sole declared Muslim nuclear power -
fronting for the entire Hub of Islam against the US-led West and its nuclear
might as well as standing up for the "honor" of Islam. To assume the
leadership position it aspires, Pakistan need not provide any Muslim state with
nuclear weapons. Moreover, the state of nuclear research and related
infrastructure in the Muslim World is so dismal that technology transfer will
only have limited impact in the near term. However, Pakistan can, and Islamabad
has already hinted its willingness to provide a nuclear umbrella to counter
balance Israel and the US To date, the mere threat of unilateral use of nuclear
weapons has deterred Arab leaders such as Saddam Hussein from using non-nuclear
weapons of mass destruction against Israel or the US forces in the Arabian
Peninsula. By merely declaring that it will not tolerate the use of nuclear
weapons against a sisterly Muslim state and warning that it might retaliate in
kind, Pakistan markedly reduces the effectiveness of the nuclear threat that
has so far restrained Arab and Iranian leaders. And the Pakistani ballistic
missiles currently test-launched can reach the centers of such potential foes
as Russia and Israel, as well as the US deployment in the Persian Gulf.
It is in this role of the nuclear guardian of diverse
Islamic causes that Pakistan is finding its leadership niche. Islamabad is
already inviting Muslim states, particularly the Arab World, to help Pakistan
withstand the sanctions in return for Pakistani support and providing of a
nuclear umbrella for their own causes - such as a confrontation with Israel or
the eviction of the US forces from the Persian Gulf. Indeed, on June 1, Prime
Minister Nawaz Sharief said that "Pakistan's nuclear tests had brought
glory to the Muslims of the world who would never bow before any super power
now." He heralded Pakistan's nuclear posture as a turning point in Islamic
history. "The Muslims will never bow before any super power and the
support of different countries for Pakistan in these difficult times will be
remembered in a historic manner," he declared.
*
Enter the Iranian exploitation of these strategic nuclear
developments to pressure Israel and Saudi Arabia. Pakistan's becoming a
declared nuclear power in the aftermath of its nuclear and missile tests is a
source of pride for all Arabs and Muslims. For the first time, the Muslims
formally crossed a threshold firmly held in Western, and even more significantly
- by Israeli hands. In this particular case, of great importance is the fact
that the Pakistani nuclear tests were highly publicized and that the government
in Islamabad has declared itself a nuclear power. This process is distinctly
different from Tehran's nuclear opacity - where just enough material has been
leaked about the country's acquisition of nuclear weapons from the ex-Soviet
Central Asia to have a deterrence factor while Tehran continues to maintain
official denial. Now, irrespective of whether Islamabad endorses it or not -
Pakistan's is an Islamic Bomb, so accepted throughout the Muslim World by both
governments and the popular street.
And this widely held impression is everything. For in the
case of nuclear weapons and their strategic delivery systems, that is,
ballistic missiles, what really counts is the image - the source and
quintessence of deterrence. Decision makers - both friends and foes - react to
the reports of that many nuclear tests, assuming that a country has more
weapons than just those tested, and believe that the missiles they watched on
TV being tested are real and capable of the advertised performance. No
responsible leader would take the risk of discovering the veracity of claimed
strategic capabilities - declared or opaque - by having these weapons detonate
over his/her country's vital centers. The same logic applies to the impression
given by the responsible authorities concerning arrangements between their
countries and governments over strategic umbrellas and other guarantees.
Of great significance is the influence of this principle on
Tehran. Pakistan's emergence as a nuclear power has already created a set of
strategic circumstances that enables Iran to be far more audacious and
assertive than before. The Islamic Republic of Iran has impressive strategic
objectives on both regional and global scales. Their furthering, let alone
realization, would entail confrontation with Israel and the US with the
inevitable necessity to resolve and/or overcome the deterrence factor. To date,
Tehran has relied on the small arsenal acquired from the former Soviet
republics of Central Asia mounted on SSMs based on North Korean and Chinese
technologies. The longer range ballistic missiles, those capable of reaching
Israel from Iranian bases, are derivatives of untested prototypes. While Tehran
is convinced these missiles will work, uncertainty remains in the mind of
Iran's enemies. Hence, for Tehran, its own arsenal was never an element of
decisive and unambiguous preventive deterrence.
Thus, the mere existence of the Pakistani Islamic Bomb
changes everything. Here there are proven missile and nuclear weapons
capabilities. There is an ambiguity as to the extent to which Islamabad will
give its strategic capabilities to all-Islamic causes, particularly in the
Middle East. However, given Islamabad's on going warnings and alarms of
impending Israeli strikes, as well as its requests for Arab and Iranian
assistance, it is virtually impossible for Islamabad not to
"contribute" to Arab-Iranian "causes," even if only in a
declaratory manner. Moreover, Egyptian and Pakistani officials claim that the
CIA has been warning Islamabad of a potential Israeli strike since 1994. That
is, the US has known about Israel's "perfidious designs" and has done
nothing to restrain Israel - thus giving greater credibility to the need to
integrate Pakistan into the Arab-Israeli and anti-US strategic equation.
Moreover, not to be ignored is the active participation of Pakistani pilots and
other military experts in all the previous Arab- Israeli wars. Thus,
irrespective of what Islamabad declares or does not declare, it is highly
likely that Pakistan will be providing a de-factor nuclear umbrella that will
serve as restraining factor for both Israel and the US in case of a major
crisis.
This dynamics should be comprehended in the context of the
mega- trends in the Middle East. The last couple of years have seen the marked
radicalization of Arab World. The public at large is giving up on US influence
and its ability to deliver Israel. Given this rise of Islamism, there is a
concurrent gravitation toward Iran and militancy. Iran's rapprochement with
Saudi Arabia is the latest and most dramatic phase in this process. Now,
through Pakistan, Iran, as leader of Muslim Bloc, can deliver the nuclear
umbrella that removes the primary obstacle to - the cause of fear of -
confrontation with Israel and the US. Consequently, for Tehran, these dynamics
provide the best of both worlds. Iran can surge in the non-nuclear level under
an undeclared yet unignorable nuclear umbrella provided by Pakistan. At the
same time, Iran will be retaining its own undeclared and opaque nuclear
capabilities as measures of last resort in case Islamabad changes position
and/or fails to deliver.
*
Further more, Iran's rising prominence and ensuing
assertiveness and audacity must be examined in the context of the greater geo-
strategic dynamics, particularly the ascent of the PRC. Beijing has a vested
interest in flaring up the Hub of Islam, if only to keep Washington
preoccupied. For that - Beijing needs Iran as the leader of the Islamic Bloc
within the Trans-Asian Axis. Pakistan still desperately needs its posture as
the lynchpin - the source of unique posture and contribution. Hence, there is
mutual interest in the exacerbation of the situation in the Hub of Islam and
projecting strategic instability. Moreover, Islamabad is adamant on becoming
the center and leader of an Islamic cause in order to mobilize its own
population and not appear only as a supporter of an Iran-led, essentially Arab
cause. Practically, Pakistan needs Arab/Iranian help with Kashmir and Central
Asia, as well as Chinese endorsement and patronage. Hence, Islamabad can hardly
refuse their participation in what is definitely a Pakistani "cause."
However, through all of this dynamics, one must not forget a
simple reality. A nuclear-tipped ballistic missile is a controlled object. If
launched, it'll fly in the direction it has been pointed to by guidance
installed by human operators. Hence, even as, say, Islamabad, warns its
missiles are aimed at point A, there is no guarantee they are not actually
aimed at point B. More specifically, even if Pakistan declared its providing of
a nuclear umbrella to a Middle East or Persian Gulf conflagration, New Delhi
would not know for certain that the Pakistani assets were no longer targeting
India. And thus the deterrence factor remains. Similarly, Islamabad's
guarantees that its nuclear assets are not a component of an Islamic
"cause" cannot be substantiated independently.
What does this ambiguity means is that Islamabad has an
incentive to capitalize on a major crisis on the Arab-Israeli front or in the
Persian Gulf in order to further its conflict with India. With world attention
focused elsewhere, and with Chinese support guaranteed, Pakistan can pursue its
own Islamic cause - Kashmir - as an integral part of the all-Islamic
"cause." Such circumstances are the best of all worlds for Islamabad.
Given the close relations between India and Israel, Pakistan can even tie both
crises - Kashmir and the Middle East - with the excuse that India was going to
help Israel, and Pakistan is defending the rear of the Hub of Islam. Tehran,
Islamabad, Arabs already believe this to be the case, and they'll make their
decisions accordingly. And so, under the Pakistani nuclear umbrella, an
emboldened Hub of Islam is already getting psyched-up, preparing to confront
its real and imaginary foes. [June 18, 1998, I & GN]