Pakistan must remain a nuclear-armed state

This week's candid discussion of Pakistan's nuclear programme by Lieutenant General (retired) Khalid Kidwai has been widely seen as a step in the right direction.

While President Pervez Musharraf battles the growing challenge to his planned political transition through elections due later this month, the country's nuclear establishment appears to have embarked on a mission to overcome the challenges to Pakistan's nuclear assets.

Kidwai's acceptance that the country has had to raise its guard in the past year - as militant attacks on military targets escalated - in itself merits recognition. Kidwai, however, categorically says that Pakistan's nuclear programme is in no danger of leaks, or proliferation.

"We have institutionalised the structures [overseeing the nuclear arsenal] and introduced modern technology so that there are sufficient firewalls, safety and security built in the chain of command as well as in the weapons and the weapon producing facilities and that there is a sound system of overwatch on the scientific manpower," he said.

This is as comprehensive a statement as it gets, given the circumstances surrounding the country.

There are no easy ways to describe how Pakistan's nuclear programme can best be safeguarded. Recent history has indeed not helped Pakistan's case, as illustrated by the 2004 revelations surrounding Abdul Qadeer Khan, the founder of the nuclear programme, who was found guilty of overseeing a proliferation racket involving the supply of knowhow and technology to Iran, Libya and North Korea.

Since those findings surfaced, Khan has lived practically under house arrest at his well fortified home in Islamabad.

Kidwai's response to Khan's case is simply that the proliferation in question took place in the 1990s, well before Pakistan began introducing institutional checks surrounding the nuclear programme. There can indeed be many other arguments in defence of the country's nuclear programme, going beyond just the notion that its nuclear status is here to stay.

Vulnerable

But there are two principal views in defence of Pakistan's nuclear ambitions. On the one hand, the country faces an acute energy crisis following a dramatic rise in global oil prices.

This essentially makes Pakistan vulnerable to the extent that its internal stability may be in question. It is impossible to tell how soon the oil price situation will resolve itself, but it is clear that this could be a longer term and recurring challenge.

Increasing reliance on nuclear energy may be a way for Pakistan to rapidly raise its energy resources and at least partially come out of its present vulnerable state.

On the other hand, Pakistan's nuclear status potentially adds to regional stability vis a viz India in the South Asian regional order. As long as both Pakistan and India remain armed with nuclear weapons, peace is much more of a given than a potentially unstable situation where one - Pakistan - is forced to disarm.

Pakistan and India have had a long history of antagonism while their peace process is still relatively new, and just not enough of an assurance.

Keeping the nuclear balance in place is essential to encourage a further consolidation of peaceful conditions.

Later this year, Pakistan will commemorate its ten years since becoming an overt nuclear power, following its maiden nuclear tests in May 1998. That event can be an opportunity, for both Pakistan and its global partners, to help consolidate the country's nuclear programme.

One possibility may well be for the global powers to consider a civil nuclear energy programme for Pakistan, of the kind offered by the United States to India. In return, Pakistan can be asked to offer new safeguards, such as some agreement to cap its nuclear weapons at a mutually acceptable level which also applies to India.

The result could be the creation of a new nuclear regime in South Asia that would help improve the security situation in the region.

The alternative of keeping Pakistan under international pressure to eventually give up its nuclear ambitions is bound to be counter-productive.

America's standoff with Iran over Tehran's nuclear programme which apparently is far less developed than Pakistan's, must offer a lesson or two.

In spite of the world's pressure, Iran refuses to give ground. A follow up question must be: how can anyone expect Pakistan to yield, ten years after it became a member of the elite club of nuclear powers?

Farhan Bokhari is a Pakistan-based commentator who writes on political and economic matters.