Musharref....now you're making Uncle Sam angry......
Hurry up and clean up your act sonny !
<g>
----
America's fear: short fuse of the Islamic bomb
Once the crisis in Afghanistan is sorted out, the Americans will force Pakistan to denuclearise, says Zafar Agha - that, or face the fate of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto or Saddam Hussein
New Delhi, October 27
Does Osama bin Laden possess a nuclear bomb? Can Islamic terrorists use nuclear material as an ultimate weapon to teach the US a lesson? Going by the latest Western news agency reports, one can assume that bin Laden may already be in possession of some sort of primitive nuclear material supplied to him by a fanatical Pakistan nuclear scientist. Or he may have purchased nuclear material from one of the breakaway Soviet states. The guess in intelligence circles is that Osama may have, at the very least, a nuclear suitcase bomb that could be potent enough to kill a couple of thousand people.
One cannot tell exactly whether bin Laden has already turned nuclear. It is part of the old geostrategic game to go on a propaganda offensive against your enemy and the Americans may be trying to turn bin Laden into a deadly enemy who needs to be destroyed. Loading Osama bin laden with a deadly weapon may be part of this old military strategy. But it must be pointed out that having a nuclear bomb is a long-held ambition of Muslim leaders. Starting the time that Indira Gandhi went in for the Pokhran test in 1974, the Islamic world went into a spin wondering why the Muslims couldn't have a nuclear bomb if Hindu India could.
The Islamic bomb is an old passion with many Muslim nations. The first man to be sold on this dream was none other than the late, lamented Pakistan prime minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. He was the man who coined the term "Islamic bomb" and sold the concept to Islamic nations way back in the early 1970s. It was the time when the oil-rich Gulf Muslim rulers were flush with money. They were looking for means to garner clout in international politics. Money alone could hardly have earned the oil-rich Sheikhs respectability in the international arena.
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, being the smartest of the Islamic politicians of that time, cleverly used the Arab world rulers' desire to possess a nuclear bomb. Indira Gandhi had already exploded a nuclear device in Pokhran. She had also succeeded in truncating the erstwhile East Pakistan from the parent country. Bhutto was looking for a nuclear shield against India, which was already on the threshold of owning a nuclear bomb. So, at the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) summit held in Lahore in 1973, Bhutto declared that Pakistan would soon have an Islamic bomb.
Bhutto's move had multiple motives.
First, as the leader of an amputated Pakistan, Bhutto was keen to evolve an Islamic bloc to counterbalance India.
*Yeah right.....dream on !
Second, he was wooing the dollar-flushed Arab Sheikhs to boost the shattered Pakistani economy in the aftermath of the Bangladesh war.
*Beg and steal, beg and steal.......when are you ever going to give up ????? LOL
Third, the ambitious Bhutto wanted to be another Gamal Abdul Nasser of the Islamic world that was then desperately looking for a weapon to take on its traditional enemy, Israel.
*Is that why he got those 72 virgins so soon ?????? ;-)
But overweening ambition is a deadly streak that sometimes destroys the men it infects. Bhutto was a victim of his own nuclear ambition, and he realised as much sitting behind prison bars just a few months before he was hanged to death. While playing up the nuclear card within the Islamic world, Bhutto had never sensed that the Western world, especially the Americans, hated the very idea of any Islamic country possessing a nuclear weapon.
The West might have looked the other way when countries like Israel, South Africa, or, for that matter, even North Korea, attempted to go nuclear. But American strategists have never tolerated the notion that any Muslim leader or Islamic nation could have a nuclear weapon. Bhutto was made a "horrible example of" for selling the dream of a nuclear weapon to the Islamic world. No one but Bhutto himself disclosed it when he wrote a book from death row before Zia-ul-Haq strung him up.
Bhutto had written that the then US secretary of state, Henry Kissinger, had told him that he should "either give up the idea of a nuclear bomb or we will make of you a horrible example for the entire Islamic world". Bhutto ignored Kissinger's warning and ended up in prison. Till the very end Bhutto maintained that he was going to be hanged not because of any factors internal to Pakistan but because the Americans hated an Islamic country having a nuclear device.
* Damn Right Too. Now look what you guys are doing to the world ! Sheesh ! Maybe Gloopie is right. Maybe you guys should all be nuked ! It surely seems like that'll be the end of violence in the world !
Kissinger's logic was that a nuclear device in an Islamic country might eventually be passed on to one of Israel's neighbours, who might actually use it against the Jewish state.
The chain of events in Islamic countries only bear out Bhutto's apprehensions. Any Muslim leader or Islamic nation attempting to go nuclear has ended up in a mess. Soon after Bhutto's death, Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi toyed with the idea of an Islamic bomb. He soon ran into trouble that ultimately destroyed the Libyan economy. Then, it was Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein's turn to try to own a nuclear bomb. The world knows what price Iraq paid for Saddam's fissile ambitions.
Somehow, Pakistan managed to ultimately build a nuclear arsenal. It attempted to sell the "Hindu bomb" as its reason for wanting a nuclear bomb. Yet it paid for the price initially with sanctions - which were eased in the Indian case, but were rigorously imposed on Pakistan till Pervez Musharraf did a dramatic turnaround after the September 11 terrorists attacks on America. Now, Americans have once again begun to vocalise their belief that they need to neutralise Pakistani nuclear facilities. Media reports have suggested that President George W Bush is consulting people to denuclearise Pakistan if the Musharraf regime collapses.
The New York Times recently reported that Pakistani nuclear scientists had passed on some nuclear material to Osama bin Laden. It raises serious questions about a Pakistani nuclear arsenal - if Musharraf is overthrown and replaced by a fundamentalist government, Pakistan's nuclear weaponry may land up in the hands of fanatics like bin Laden. So people questioned the chairperson of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Joe Biden, about the possibility that America might try to denuclearise Pakistan. In his reply to the committee, Biden said, "Those discussions (de-nuclearising Pakistan) are underway with the Democratic and Republican members of Congress and the President on setting those priorities."
Caught in the middle of the Afghan crossfire, the Americans cannot afford to let Pakistan go ahead with its nuclear plans. Sooner or later, the US will tighten its screws on Pakistan. After all, an Islamic bomb scares the living daylights out of the West. Which is why in Islamic countries those who listen to America's advice on a nuclear programme may survive. Those who refuse will meet Bhutto's fate.
The other scenario is that Islamic countries that attempt to possess a nuclear device may end up in a situation like Iraq. Whether bin Laden has or doesn't have nuclear material is not an important question: what is is the very idea that men like him can get a nuclear device. This Western apprehension could lead to Pakistan denuclearising itself. Americans feel that nuclear material in any part of the Islamic world is a threat to them. So Pakistan has to either fall in line, denuclearise itself, or be ready to become another Iraq once the Afghan crisis is settled. |
