Has the case of nuclear proliferation got something to do with the mode of governance in the country? Apparently not. Pakistan stands maligned today because it is a small and impoverished Muslim country, which was compelled to reveal its nuclear capability in response to the Indian nuclear tests in the summer of 1998.  Although the now discredited atomic scientist Dr A. Q. Khan had admitted to the Indian journalist Kuldip Nayyar back in 1987 that Pakistan had achieved the capability by conducting lab tests, his pronouncements were largely ignored by the Nuclear Community as an idle boast, a classic Khan exercise in self projection. However, as the mushroom cloud rose over the barren Chaghi hills in the backwaters of Baluchistan, there were harsh fallouts worse than the radioactivity of an atomic blast. A set of debilitating sanctions was imposed to punish the wayward nuclear regimes. Was the manner of their governance being faulted? Apparently not. Only that it was unacceptable for the powers to be to imagine the possibility of nuclear warheads in the hands of a billion poor people.

Nearly three years later, there were explosions of another kind. This time Ground Zero was in mainland America far from the South Asian subcontinent. As the debris of the Twin Towers rained down the fashionable Manhattan district of New York in the fateful month of September 2001, the Americans momentarily forgot about the nuclear truants and declared war on Al Qaeda,  holed up in far away Afghanistan next to Pakistan. The spotlight again shifted to Pakistan. It was tersely told to withdraw support from the Al Qaeda, to stop hosting the Taliban and join the “Global War on Terror” or else?

The Americans began a phased operation in the region to destroy their new enemies. First, it was the Taliban and the Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and next they invaded Iraq to prevent the dastardly Saddam Hussain from using his Weapons of Mass Destruction, before he could unleash these against Israel within 45 minutes. In Afghanistan, the Americans installed Hamid Karzai in Kabul and in Iraq, an Interim Governing Council of nominated Iraqis under the pro consulship of L. Paul Bremer’s CPA. In both places they failed to achieve their stated aims, namely the destruction of the Al Qaeda leadership and the seizure of the WMD and to usher in a modicum of stability.

As peace remains elusive both in Afghanistan and Iraq and the governments in America and its most obedient ally Britain are being questioned for the quality and substance of the intelligence based on which they went to war, they need another excuse to divert the attention of the voters, who go to the polling booths this year. How about terrorists armed with bombs, which can target ordinary citizens? How about a source of leaking nuclear technology? How about a shadowy underworld, which encourages scientists blinded by personal greed and /or misplaced ideology, who are willing to peddle in the illegal commerce of nuclear secrets? In a nation, where perceptions are formed by CNN, Fox News and the ubiquitous Hollywood, you have another set of readymade rogues to fight against and slay before you cast your vote. ‘Pakistan’, the head of the international atomic watch dog agency Muhammad El Baradei self righteously proclaims ‘is only the tip of the iceberg’. The footprints of the nuclear underworld are all over. There are unscrupulous traders from South Africa selling on proscribed triggers, Malaysian machine tool factory making parts for the enrichment centrifuges and wealthy middleman from Dubai financing the covert deals. Interestingly the script writers conveniently choose to ignore the complicity of the developed world in this sordid affair. The fact that it is the military industrial complex of the advanced countries, which plays upon the fears of the poor countries by arming them with conventional weapons, as the so called WMD is not to be shown to the gullible Western audiences who act as the conscience of the world at large.   

Pakistan is in a tight spot indeed. For the moment it has been let off lightly. It has been slapped on the wrist and its public icon A Q Khan has been made to apologise on national TV. It will be allowed to remain above water as long as it remains relevant and as long as it plays game. The governance matters as long as those who govern play by international rules. So Pakistan has room for manoeuvre for the moment. Meanwhile, it is others who need to watch out as the plot for the nuclear proliferation unravels it could be the turn of another irresponsible nation next. So there is a linkage between governance and proliferation but not necessarily in the context that we understand. It is the international players, who make the rules define the linkage in how they understand it best.