Inside the nuclear closet

The president of Pakistan, General Pervez Musharraf, is in a self-congratulatory mood these days, savouring the praise heaped upon him by US President George Bush, Secretary of State, Collin Powell, and the under-secretary of state for arms control, John Bolton. After surviving two recent assassination attempts and overseeing a high-level summit meeting with India, the great survivor of Pakistani politics acts as if the worst is behind him. By way of celebration, he announced new long-range missile tests for March 2004, and a two-stage Shaheen II missile system has already been tested at the time of going to press.

The primary reason for General Musharraf´s current satisfaction is the way his treatment of Pakistan´s  hugely popular nuclear hero, Abdul Qadeer Khan — forcing him to apologise on public television for his illicit nuclear trafficking, yet also pardoning him for the offence — allowed him to please Washington without causing a massive uproar. Many in the Pakistani press had warned that any attempt to punish Qadeer, advertised for near two decades as the architect of Pakistan´s and the Islamic world´s nuclear bomb, would provoke rampaging mobs to demand an end to Musharraf´s pro-US rule. As it turned out, Washington was thrilled with the general´s rebuke of the wayward scientist, while a disillusioned and disempowered Pakistani public grumbled but did not take to the streets.