Just when you thought Pakistan was
out of the woods on the issue of its nuclear scientist,
Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan, and his "nuclear department
store", the issue has become hot again. A report issued
by the US Central Intelligence Agency on November 23
states that he "provided Iran's nuclear program with significant
assistance, including designs for advanced and
efficient weapons components". Iran's continued flirtation
with the enrichment of uranium is also fueling
this controversy. The United States' fear is that Iran is
considerably closer to developing nuclear weapons than
even the best estimates of the United Nations' watchdog
agency, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA),
indicate. The presence of indigenous nuclear know-how in
Iran and that country's proximity to Pakistan may be two
other reasons underlying Washington's concern.
The nuclear-proliferation-related activities of
Khan might be less a source of concern for the US if all
the facts were disclosed. Khan is currently under house
arrest. The government of Pakistan has supposedly done
its own inquiry regarding the specifics of his
activities and closed the case, but refuses to make him
available for interviews by the IAEA. However, in the
absence of a full disclosure, there is the incessant
uneasy feeling in Washington that the known part of his
activities was only the tip of the iceberg of the "mail
order" aspects of the global nuclear black market.
Before the disclosure of Khan's activities, the US
was living in a make-believe world, thinking that as long
as high-profile non-proliferation regimes were in place,
everyone would play by the rules. There were at least
two problems related to such thinking. First, the US-sponsored
nuclear non-proliferation regimes provided ample
security guarantees through "extended nuclear deterrence"
only to all Western European countries (of the
Cold War years) and some Asian countries, such as Japan,
Australia, Thailand, South Korea and Taiwan. Second,
a number of other countries that were parties to major
regional conflicts were left to scramble nuclear security
from their major interlocutors, such as the former
Soviet Union and China, or were left to fend for themselves.
For instance, India unsuccessfully sought security
guarantees under the nuclear umbrella of the US in
the 1960s, in the aftermath of its major border skirmish
with Chinese forces. Pakistan was in essence
left on its own, since it was never really offered
extended nuclear deterrence by China. North Korea had
the security guarantees of China during the Cold War
years, and perhaps tacit guarantees from the Soviet
Union, but in the post-Cold War world, and in the wake
of growing US-China rapprochement, Pyongyang was no
longer certain that China would come to its assistance
if it was attacked by the US.
India finally
found some palpable solace by signing the so-called
friendship treaty with the Soviet Union, especially
after the infamous US "tilt" toward Pakistan
during the East Pakistan crisis of 1971 that led to the
creation of Bangladesh. But even that security treaty
was not a sufficient reason for India to forgo
developing its own nuclear option. India did just that
by emerging as a nuclear power in May 1998. Pakistan
soon followed suit.
In the meantime, the
US became more resolute than ever about stopping
nuclear proliferation and ensuring that there would not be
a repeat of the Indian and Pakistani examples. That's
one reason Washington has remained so adamant that North
Korea not become the next declared nuclear power.
The Khan controversy forced the US to face three
ugly realities: first, not only that the nuclear genie
is out of the proverbial bottle, but that it is also
likely to keep on delivering nuclear technology via mail
order to all the would-be nuclear powers. Second, the
nuclear black market - which cannot be effectively dealt
with by using the extant international legal channels -
was highly proactive in its endeavors to make Libya,
Iran and North Korea the next nuclear powers. Third, in
the wake of the thriving nuclear black market, the
chances are high that the shady and illegal modus
operandi of Khan would be utilized by other actors
to proliferate nuclear know-how and technology to other
nuclear aspirants in the future. Iran is envisioned as
the most visible current practitioner of that modus
operandi.
The US reaction was not only
an expression of anger and dismay, but a demand for
a thorough international investigation of the damage
done by Khan and his cohorts. More important, Washington
was interested in finding out whether the house arrest
of Khan also meant the end of the nuclear black market,
or just the removal of a visible personality from the
scene without the real dismantlement of the global
mail-order system. President George W Bush's "global war
on terrorism" was the main reason the US could not
press the government of Pakistan to come clean about its
role in the Khan affair. That is why the controversy
refuses to go away. Washington is also highly concerned
that other countries might acquire nuclear technology
once the US pressure eases up.
There is also a
troubling similarity between Pakistan's refusal to
cooperate with the IAEA about the full disclosure of
Khan's nuclear proliferation-related activities and
those of other countries that have been involved in it.
For instance, Malaysia refuses to make available one of
Khan's colleagues, Buhary Seyed Abu Tahir, a native of
Sri Lanka who is residing there and is related to the
prime minister of Malaysia by marriage. Malaysia's
reason: its "restrictive Security Act". The best-known
aspect of Khan's activities in nuclear proliferation
comes from Libya, which has decided to abandon its
fledgling nuclear program and also cooperated with the
US and the United Kingdom in disclosing all aspects of
its previously secret nuclear program. Libya's
cooperation has also brought to light the involvement of
South Africa in putting together "a complete,
ready-for-use assembly control system for a Libyan
uranium enrichment plant ... code name Project Machine
Shop 1001". It is impossible to create such a system
without the knowledge of the government of South Africa.
Yet no South African official has been made available
for interview by the IAEA. At the same time, no one
knows the extent of involvement of China and Russia -
two countries that have been heavily involved in
supplying nuclear technology to Iran in proliferating
nuclear know-how - in the nuclear black market.
Despite high pressure on Iran, there are slim
chances that the full extent of Khan's involvement in
that country's nuclear program will come out any time
soon. In all likelihood, this saga will remain unsolved
until the next major disclosure linking another regional
state's involvement in nuclear proliferation-related
activities. Even if Pakistan fully discloses the
involvement of its own nuclear scientist, there is still
no guarantee that the nuclear black market will be
eliminated, or even fully controlled. As long as
countries are motivated to acquire nuclear weapons as
part of their overall security blanket, there will be
suppliers out there willing to sell them whatever they
want.
Ehsan Ahrari, PhD, is an Alexandria, Virginia, US-based
independent strategic analyst.
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