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US ignores core of nuclear terror
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Kanwal Sibal
10 May 2010
The US mustered 47 world leaders at Washington on April 12/13 for a Nuclear Security Summit to address the grave issue of nuclear terrorism. The summit communique seeks to secure all vulnerable nuclear material in 4 years and an accompanying Work Plan contains specific steps for this. Countries will take on the responsibility voluntarily and in accordance with their national laws, with reference to the provisions of UN Security Resolution 1540, the Convention on Protection of Nuclear Materials and the International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism. Given the freedom of action countries have retained in implementing the summit outcome, and the fact that the US itself has not as yet ratified the two Conventions, and merely 8 of the participating countries, including India but not Pakistan, have ratified both, any dramatic progress by the time of the next summit in South Korea in 2012 is unlikely.
Many questions arise. To begin with, is nuclear terrorism as dramatic a danger as the US initiative would suggest? If terrorists manage to stage an attack with nuclear materials it would indeed be catastrophic. But what are the chances of this happening? After the Soviet Union collapsed, fears about loose Russian nuclear materials falling into the hands of terrorists were expressed, but nothing untoward has happened in the last 20 years. Beyond that, successfully denuclearizing the erstwhile Soviet states and bringing them within the NPT fold plugged a source of leakage of nuclear materials potentially much more vulnerable.
That only the P-5 possesses weapons grade material circumscribes the scope of the problem significantly. All others, barring India, Pakistan and Israel who have such material too, are NPT members. Their civilian programmes are under strict IAEA safeguards. The problem is further narrowed down by the ground reality that Islamic countries do not as yet have civilian nuclear reactors- though this will change in the future- and only an odd country or two has research reactors. Iraq’s nuclear capability has been eliminated by force and that of Libya squeezed out through sanctions.
Israel’s nuclear programme can hardly be the source of nuclear terrorism, given the country’s own extraordinary vulnerability. India’s nuclear assets are secure beyond doubt. North Korea poses a serious problem because of its withdrawal from the NPT -- and hence IAEA’s supervision -- and more especially, its involvement in clandestine proliferation of nuclear and missile technologies. Iran’s nuclear activity is under IAEA safeguards, but there is a crisis of confidence between it and the West as its future intentions are unclear. However, there is no reason to believe a priori that whatever be the egregiousness of some Iranian pronouncements on Israel, Iran would be lax enough to allow would-be terrorists to gain access to its undeclared nuclear materials to cause international mayhem.
China is culpable of highly irresponsible behaviour in transferring nuclear materials and technology to Pakistan. Through Pakistan centrifuge technology has been transferred to Iran and Chinese weapons designs have surfaced in Libya. China continues to engage in nuclear cooperation with Pakistan despite the A.Q. Khan affair, the established reports about contacts between some Pakistani nuclear scientists and the Al Qaeda leadership, the rise of religious extremism in the country and the uncertainty with regard to the degree to which elements in the Pakistan army- which controls the country’s nuclear facilities- have been infected by radical Islamic beliefs. The spread of terrorist activity in Pakistan, with Taliban cadres attempting to target Pakistani nuclear installations, has not deterred China from cooperating. Pakistan is unique in being a nuclear weapon state where political instability, Islamic radicalism, terrorism and nuclear proliferation intersect.
How to reconcile US’s mobilisation of the international community at Washington to address the looming threat of nuclear terrorism and its reluctance to fully expose the most glaring instance of an actual clandestine network trafficking in nuclear technology and materials -- the A.Q.Khan affair? Barring a number of developed industrial democracies where nuclear technology and fissionable material are also in the hands of the private sector, in other countries fissionable material is only in the state sector. Non-state actors, as a proposition, can get access to nuclear materials only with the connivance of state actors, unless the state itself collapses. The US has consciously protected Pakistani state actors from being directly implicated for the A.Q.Khan affair, contrary to common sense and Khan’s subsequent assertions about the involvement of Pakistani political and military actors in his activities. It is not enough that the US is satisfied with the closure of the Khan network; others too, especially India, are entitled to know the extent of damage caused as we are in the region and Pakistan’s unending hostility and its record of using terrorism as an instrument of state policy towards us, makes us particularly vulnerable. In a collective fight the legitimate interests and concerns of all have to be taken into account. US’s soft handling of Pakistan in the context of nuclear terrorism conflicts with its goal of containing this menace internationally in the future.
Forces that can conceivably resort to nuclear terrorism against the US in particular, whether the Al Qaeda or the Taliban, are operating from safe havens in Pakistan. Both these and related extremist groups are fighting the Americans in Afghanistan. Worse, the extremist infection has moved from Pakistan’s periphery to its heartland in the Panjab. The Pakistan Army is unwilling to uproot the Panjab based jihadi groups as their linkages to mainstream Pakistani politics are strong, besides their utility as instruments of terror against India.
Is the US justified in overlooking the danger of nuclear terrorism emanating from Pakistani soil because it sorely needs Pakistan’s cooperation in dealing with Afghanistan? Not if one takes at face value the depth of its concern about nuclear terrorism as signified by its decision to host a huge gathering of world leaders at Washington. Pakistan’s posture on nuclear issues is not only not defensive, it is positively self-assured because of the dichotomy in the US attitude towards Pakistan’s nuclear conduct and its links with terorism. Pakistan is acting with the confidence that the A.Q.Khan affair has been buried by the West. It has single-handedly blocked negotiations on the FMCT at Geneva, a major nuclear non-proliferation milestone for the US. Pakistan is aggressively demanding, including at the Washington summit, parity with India with regard to international civilian nuclear cooperation. Adept at political blackmail, it is linking concerns about the security of its nuclear assets, aggravated by the expansion of its nuclear programme even as its internal instability mounts, to not only the threat posed by India, but also the India-US nuclear deal, which it claims is fuelling an arms race as it permits India to expand its nuclear arsenal to Pakistan’s peril. Indeed, Prime Minister Gilani had the gall, at the summit, to offer to host an international nuclear fuel cycle services facility in Pakistan, for the benefit of the international community!!
That President Obama is “very fond of Pakistan”, as the summit participants were informed through a White House statement, perhaps explains why Pakistan is so audacious and the US so confused about the core of the problem relating to nuclear terrorism that the world faces.
The writer is a former Foreign Secretary and can be contacted at sibalkanwal@gmail.com
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