Mr Nawaz Sharif is a bit of a joker. He told a rally in Azad Kashmir on August 23rd that Pakistan had made an atom bomb. Until last year, however, as prime minister Mr Sharif had continued to stress that Pakistan had frozen its nuclear programme and hadn’t assembled any nuclear weapons. Clearly, he was lying then or he is lying now.
Mr Sharif says he has chosen to make this disclosure for two reasons: One, because he feared that Benazir Bhutto was negotiating with the Americans to roll back Pakistan’s nuclear programme. His information secretary, Mushahid Hussain, told Voice of America that Mr Sharif was seeking to scuttle the “quiet diplomacy” underway between Islamabad and Washington because it wasn’t in Pakistan’s interests. Two, because he felt that India had become belligerent and needed to be told off in no uncertain terms that “Pakistan meant business”.
Mr Sharif’s explanations are hollow. Benazir Bhutto and General Abdul Waheed have already told the Americans that there can be no question of “rolling back” the nuclear programme or allowing physical inspections of Pakistan’s nuclear facilities. That is why there is a deadlock in US-Pak relations. The “quiet diplomacy” underway is aimed at restoring US aid to Pakistan by assuring Washington that Pakistan’s nuclear objectives are security-oriented and defensive and in no way proliferationist. As far as warning India is concerned, the strategic deterrent has been in place for years. The whole world has been repeatedly told by Pakistan that in the event of a war with India we could assemble and deliver nuclear weapons at short notice. Why then has Mr Sharif made his sensational ‘disclosures’?
One theory (propounded by Mr Sharif’s apologists) is that Mr Sharif might have been secretly nudged by the army high command to make his statement. This is ridiculous. If anything, the opposite is true. The army leadership is involved in trying to alleviate Western fears about Pakistan’s nuclear programme so that it can lay its hands on state-of-the-art hardware for its conventional military defence. Mr Sharif’s statement will make its task all the more uphill now.
A simpler explanation may be closer to the truth. Mr Sharif is a desperate man given to thunderous speeches, impulsive claims and absurd allegations. He will clutch at anything to win cheap popularity and downgrade Benazir Bhutto. On August 23rd, he was alone in the exalted company of that lone ‘mujahid’ from Kashmir, Sardar Abdul Qayyum, who was trying to steal the local show. None of Mr Sharif’s PML(N) lieutenants was around to restrain him. So he got carried away in the heat of the moment and conjured up a Pakistani bomb to evoke some loud cheers.
When Mr Sharif returned to Islamabad, he found his colleagues in a state of feverish agitation. Chaudhry Shujaat had already “clarified” that Mr Sharif was misquoted. “He meant to say that Pakistan could assemble a bomb, not that it had already made a bomb”, said the worried Chaudhry, or words to that effect.
The PML(N) then went into a long huddle in Islamabad. Some people said that Mr Sharif should retract or clarify his statement. Others argued that, because the deed was done and accurately reported, retraction would hurt Mr Sharif’s public image. Instead, the hawks felt, maximum mileage should now be extracted from it and to hell with the ‘national’ cause.
Accordingly, when Mr Sharif emerged from the meeting, he was reluctant to face the press. Instead, a few journalists who could be counted upon not to ask embarrassing questions, were called in and asked to report the ‘official line’. Mr Sharif has since flown the coop to London.
Some people say Mr Sharif’s disclosure is justified: “Since US aid is not available, it’s about time we told Washington where to get off”. Others think Mr Sharif has “redeemed our national honour and raised our morale”. A few, like the hawk Mushahid Hussain, claim that since the NPT is coming up for review next year, Pakistan can now insist on joining it as a nuclear power.
Such emotionalism and sterile views betray a singular ignorance about the ‘proliferation’ debate. Nuclear “ambiguity” serves Pakistan well: it allows us to retain our strategic deterrence without attracting the sanctions imposed on pariah states like Iraq and Korea.
For a long time, Indian intellectuals have “advised” us to put our bomb on the shelf and “come clean” about our intentions. But we haven’t fallen into their trap. Now Mr Sharif has given New Delhi a marvelous opportunity to put us on the mat and isolate us in the forum of international opinion. Reports confirm that New Delhi is quickly gearing up to launch an aggressive campaign to malign Pakistan.
As far as the NPT is concerned, there is no way that Pakistan can join it as a nuclear power. Although the treaty is scheduled for ‘review’ next year, a consensus exists among the Western powers that there is no need to revise or amend it. Instead, the Western powers are thinking of opening a new anti-proliferation track whereby non-weaponised countries with nuclear programmes like India, Pakistan, Argentina, Brazil, Korea, etc can be nudged to halt the production of fissionable material. This would allow such countries to retain their non-weaponised nuclear deterrent while abiding by the anti-proliferation regime. Mr Sharif’s disclosure has now thrown a spanner in the works. If the Western world believes him, it will have to insist that we should roll back our nuclear programme rather than simply freeze it.
Mr Sharif’s miscreancy, however, is not limited to the damage wrought on Pakistan’s nuclear policy. He has also told the world that as prime minister he had given Rs 300 million to the fundamentalist Jammat i Islami to aid and abet the militants in Indian-held Kashmir. India, which wants Pakistan to be stamped as a terrorist state, has long accused Pakistan of doing precisely this. In 1992, we came precipitously close to being put on the list of “terrorist countries” by the United States. But we have consistently denied these charges. However, in view of Mr Sharif’s admissions, it will now become doubly difficult for Pakistan to harness world opinion against human rights violations by India in Kashmir. In time, if Mr Sharif should continue to insist upon his version of the truth, Pakistan could be targetted as a “rogue” regime.
There is no doubt about it: Pakistan’s national security concerns have been irrevocably harmed by Mr Nawaz Sharif’s childish outbursts. Not only has he made it more difficult for Pakistan to persuade the world that it is acting in a mature and responsible manner, it has given India ammunition with which to shoot down Pakistan at every international forum.
Mr Sharif’s hatred for Ms Bhutto has overstepped the boundary of political licence. He has broken every rule in the book. He lied when he accused Ms Bhutto of freezing Pakistan’s nuclear programme in 1989, even as the Americans were accusing Pakistan of having crossed the red light in 1990 while Ms Bhutto was still prime minister. Then, when he was prime minister himself, Mr Sharif forked over hundreds of millions of dollars to Lockheed Corporation for the F-16s which may never be delivered to Pakistan. He also brought Pakistan to the brink of being a declared a terrorist state in 1993. (Chaudhry Nisar was forced to visit Washington in April 1993 and beg the US Secretary of State Warren Christofer to forgive Pakistan). Now he has delivered Pakistan into India’s hands so that it can campaign to have us classified as a rogue and terrorist regime.
There are people in this country who, driven by insane visions and grandiose dreams, are bent upon taking Pakistan into no-man’s land. Others are simply prisoners of an angst-ridden psyche who want to stand up and tell the world to get off. A third category, which includes would-be secularists and die-hard Islamicists, is reacting to the plight of international Islam and the Western bias against it. All these groups are negativist in their approach. They have no concrete solutions to offer. The real danger is that Mr Nawaz Sharif might become an unwitting joker in their hands and lead Pakistan to disaster.