Pakistan

ConservativesForImpeachment.com

Pakistan

It is suicidal for America to passively watch and wait while Pakistan builds its
nuclear arsenal. It is foolish in the extreme to do nothing as Pakistan slowly
increases the range of its ballistic missiles.

True, President Musharraf and his government are – and have always been –
magnificent friends. Without their friendship and alliance (in defiance of
their own people) it would have been difficult to attack Taliban and Al-
Queda targets within Afghanistan. As long as Mr. Musharraf is in power, we
will always have an ally in South Asia.

But how long will he remain in power, and what will replace him?

After all, no government lasts for long in Pakistan. From its independence in
1947, the nation has spent roughly half its time under elected civilian
governments and half under military dictatorships. Inevitably, sooner or
later, President Musharraf will be forced to give up power. And this assumes
he is not assassinated: he survived two attempts against his life last
December.

So one way or the other, our great friend will depart the scene one day. And
when that happens, what will the civilian government be like that inherits his
missiles and nuclear weapons?

One thing is certain: the new government will be anti-American. With 97
percent of Pakistan’s population Muslim, and Muslim fundamentalists
everywhere, most Pakistanis do not have a high opinion of us. And an
elected government will represent its people’s political and religious passions
infinitely better than President Musharraf. That means an end to Pakistan’s
friendship and alliance with America, and the beginning of a hostile
relationship.

Those missiles and nuclear weapons, built up by our ally President Musharraf,
will now be in the hands of a hostile government, perhaps an enemy
government.

In a few years, Pakistan’s missiles will have intercontinental range. And
under an anti-American government, those ICBMs will probably be aimed at
New York and Washington.

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But some readers will say this poses no great problem. After all, the Soviet
Union and its successor state Russia have aimed missiles at us for decades,
and nothing has come of it. China may be aiming all its nukes at us right
now, but there would be little point for China to launch them. We would
launch ours in retaliation, and annihilate China – just as China would
annihilate us.

And since Chinese and Russians want to die no more than we do, deterrence
– based on the fear of death – would prevent a nuclear war.

And therein lies the problem. Because most Muslim fundamentalists believe
with absolute certainty that they will go straight to heaven if they die
fighting the infidel (that’s us), they will have no fear of death while waging
war against us. In such a war, therefore, conventional nuclear deterrence
would not deter our adversaries in the slightest. A fundamentalist Muslim
state could launch a nuclear strike on us without the slightest fear of our
retaliation.

As far as they were concerned, our retaliation would merely bring death,
which would be a blessing; it would send the government and its Islamic
warriors straight to Allah.

Which is why we cannot allow Pakistan, or any other Muslim state, to have
nuclear weapons, now or in the future. If we do, deterrence will not be
operative. And without deterrence we will surely die.

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But other readers may correctly say that Pakistan’s ballistic missiles cannot
reach American targets today, and probably won’t be able to do so for at
least five years. Today their range only slightly exceeds 1,000 miles.
Therefore, why worry? The danger – if any – lies in the distant future.

But this assumes that nuclear weapons can be delivered only by
technologically sophisticated means such as cruise or ballistic missiles. In
reality, the most dangerous delivery vehicle for nuclear weapons has always
been the least sophisticated – an ordinary delivery van, for example.

The catastrophe looming before us becomes obvious when we apply this
low-tech approach to the Pakistani situation. If a new anti-American
government came to power in Islamabad tomorrow, it could attack us with
nuclear weapons immediately. By secreting nukes onboard foreign-flag
freighters in Karachi bound for New York, Boston, Philadelphia and a dozen
other ports, those freighters would soon be docked in those cities.

Then someone could push the button to remotely detonate the devices.

Amid the debris and devastation in those American cities, who could tell
which ship had carried the nuclear device, or if it had been inside a delivery
van sitting on the dock? Even if the explosion were somehow traced to the
correct freighter, the 100 nationalities of those who had put freight onboard
the ship would block the determination of the attacking nation. How could
we ever determine which box or carrier the nuclear weapon was located in,
and the nationality of that box or container?

Of course, all those who have seen or read Tom Clancy’s Sum of All Fears are
aware that a weapon’s radioactive fallout can be analyzed and, at least
theoretically, traced back to the nation – or even to the specific factory –
that manufactured the weapon. (All the more reason for Pakistan to buy its
weapons from North Korea, Islamic former Soviet republics or from China,
which has helped Pakistan’s nuclear program in the past!) But even if the
offending nuclear weapons were traced back to Pakistan, the government
could always swear they had been stolen from the nation’s nuclear arsenal
by an Islamic terrorist group, which was solely responsible for their tragic
and regrettable use against American targets.

How could we be sure they were lying? If it were even possible that a
terrorist group had stolen and used the nukes, we couldn't retaliate against
Pakistan.

But for that matter, how could we retaliate against the terrorist group,
assuming we were able to determine which particular terrorist group it was?
Terrorist groups don't advertise the location of their headquarters.

In the end, we would not retaliate. And without retaliation, the successful
experiment would surely be repeated.

But freighters are the least of our worries. Incoming jetliners, incoming
private jets, incoming jet freighters and incoming private yachts could all
carry nuclear weapons. The jets could detonate their nukes over cities. Or,
once they were smuggled in by freighter, they could be transferred to a
delivery vans, which could be parked right next to the White House, the
Pentagon and Capitol Hill.

Thus, the problem is the nuclear weapon itself. Once a nation has nuclear
weapons, it can strike us. The lack of sophisticated delivery vehicles can
always be circumvented with a little imagination. Even a baby carriage could
carry a small nuke.
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But even today, with our magnificent friend and ally President Musharraf still
firmly in power, rumors about leakage of Pakistani nuclear weapons to pro-
Taliban terrorist groups have concerned Americans since 9/11. The loyalty
of Pakistan’s nuclear scientists (or their loyalty to the Taliban) has often come
into question. (This should come as no surprise with the high percentage of
Muslim fundamentalists in the population.)

Soon after 9/11, for instance, two nuclear scientists were seized by the
Pakistani government, released, and then seized again. Washington has
often worried that President Musharraf could lose control of his nuclear
arsenal.

If this does not make Pakistan too unstable a host for a nuclear arsenal,
consider this: the country’s leading nuclear scientist (Abdul Qadeer Kahn)
was arrested last year for selling nuclear secrets to a minimum of three Third
World nations, and possibly as many as six! But he was not thrown into jail.
Hardly. Such were the riots led by nationalistic Pakistanis in his favor that
President Musharraf had no choice but to free and conditionally pardon him.
Kahn is a national hero!

All of which makes it obvious that Pakistan must abandon its nuclear
program and weapons.

But Pakistan will say, quite accurately, that it needs its nuclear weapons to
defend itself against its enemy India, which has its own, more advanced
missile and nuclear weapons programs.

To allow itself to be disarmed, therefore, as a minimum Pakistan would have
to be guaranteed that India would also be disarmed. But for India to be
disarmed of nuclear weapons -- a far more difficult task -- we would have to
guarantee its safety from Chinese nuclear attack.

(Dear Lord, what nightmares ensue when the world’s only superpower is so
weak and soft and "compassionate" that it allows every nation that calls itself
a friend to arm itself with nuclear weapons, even Third World nations whose
population consists mainly of religious fanatics! Apparently, we are afraid
we might offend people if we said "NO!" But superpowers should not be
chronic people-pleasers. They should be made of sterner stuff. Surely our
excessive and inappropriate wimpishness will be the death of us all -- without
vigorous and prompt action.)

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All this is not to claim we are in a hopeless situation. On the contrary, the
goal of this article is merely to examine G. W. Bush’s wisdom when, just 13
days after 9/11, he removed the economic sanctions that President Clinton
had put on Pakistan after it detonated its first nuclear weapons in 1998.

True, as a short-term policy removing the sanctions made sense: Because of
its frontier with Afghanistan, Pakistan had just become an invaluable ally in
the fight against bin Laden, the Taliban and Al-Queda. But as a long-term
policy it is pure foolishness.

Its nukes may one day destroy American cities.

Mr. Bush, of course, will never change his policy towards Pakistan. His
greatest strength -- and his greatest weakness -- is his persistence, his great
perseverance.

Therefore he and Mr. Cheney must be impeached and removed from office.
A new president must immediately insist – using all available arguments and
threats – that Pakistan and India give up their nuclear weapons now, right
now -- as soon as believable guarantees for the safety of both nations can be
made.

Most of all, we must at the very least guarantee India that we will protect it
from any Chinese nuclear attack -- and that must be a guarantee as solid as
the ones we give to Kansas or Iowa or New Hampshire.

Without this, India will never disarm. And if it doesn't disarm, Pakistan will
never disarm.

And if it doesn't, we must continue to wait for an inevitable nuclear attack
from the Third World.

Or as a horrible last alternative, we may have to convince Pakistan and India
to surrender their nuclear weapons by destroying some of their cities --
before their missiles can reach American targets.

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But if all this seems too violent, imagine we are standing five feet away from
a man who has a pistol in his hand pointed right at our head. He has been
pointing it at us for years, so we are quite used to it by now.   Besides, what's
the worry? With our right hand we are pointing a pistol at his head, too, so
he will probably never fire. Why would he take the risk?

Of course, there is this other little problem: there is another man, just to our
left, who is also pointing a pistol at our head. But again, it's no big deal, since
with our left hand we are also pointing a pistol at his head. He will probably
never fire it, will he?

In metaphorical form, this is our current situation with Russia and China,
which are aiming their nuclear weapons at us. Do we really need two more
nations -- India and Pakistan -- pointing their nukes at us? Aren't two nations
really enough of a risk?

Besides, India and Pakistan are Third World nations, driven by religious
fanaticism and massive poverty. If we are so weak that we have tolerated
the movement of nuclear weapons into the wildly unstable Third World, will
we ever have the nerve to say no? If Egypt, nominally a friend, wants to
have nukes, will we again say nothing? What about Saudi Arabia, South
Africa and Argentina?

At our current pace, with our current cowardly policies, we will have 20 or
30 nations pointing nuclear weapons at us within 50 years, and several of
those nations will be Islamic.

Which one, I wonder, will be the first to launch its missiles at us?

                                                   --the end--

C. E. O'Connor has just finished a political novel, Strike Now! It is set 900
years in the future, and elaborates on the theme of another superpower's
fatal failure to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons. He is also
Executive Director of the Arlington, Virginia-based Conservatives for
Impeachment (ConservativesForImpeachment.com)