Are we being cornered?

The disclosure by Iranian President Ahmedinejad that America was out to sabotage Pakistan’s nuclear assets cannot be ignored. He claimed, “We have precise information that America wants to sabotage the Pakistani nuclear facilities in order to control Pakistan and to weaken the government and people of Pakistan.” He added, “The United States would then use the UN Security Council and some other international bodies as levers to prepare the ground for a massive presence (in Pakistan).”

There are concrete and effective sources to find out what some states are upto against other states and what operations they want to carry out against them. Since Iran and the US have been engaged in a virtual cold war for three decades, this must mean that they are definitely expending special intelligence efforts to find out about each other’s plans. Iran wouldn’t have needed any special effort to get this information about Pakistan. The sources they would have been using to discover America’s designs about their own nuclear assets must have led them to intel regarding Pakistan which was subsequently revealed by Ahmedinejad.

This news reaching Iranian sources may mean that whatever the US has in store for Iran, it can also be assumed that it has similar designs regarding Pakistan and that it is also bracketing Pakistan in the same slot as Iran. Both these countries are located in the same region and the posting of American forces in the Gulf, Afghanistan, Qatar, Iraq and the Arabian Sea is such that a joint operation in Iran and Pakistan could be conducted. It may be that the Iranian president did not reveal their entire findings out of expedient concerns but the room for the suspicion still remains that American policy with regards to nuclear assets has been devised or is being devised by lumping the two nations together.

The Iranian president also revealed that the US is going to use the UNSC for its proceedings against Pakistan’s nuclear assets. This is something for which open proofs are already available. Much has been made of sanctuaries of international terrorist organisations in Pakistan. The people making this noise don’t need more evidence to prove that the centres located in Pakistan are now being used to plan for terrorist activities outside Pakistan’s borders, to train and export terrorists to other countries and then supervise their goings-on. The UN has already called upon Pakistan government to take action against the illegal terrorist organisations present here. The UN itself has declared these organisations illegal and it has handed a list of organisations to the Pakistan government to move against.

No further proof is needed of OBL’s presence in Pakistan either. The only question that now remains is who were his aides and guardians? No one is ready to believe that a man unfamiliar with Pakistan’s languages and culture could be stationed right beneath the army’s nose for five years and conduct the affairs of his terrorist organisation with relative convenience. We shouldn’t treat OBL’s presence in the country like any other matter. This series of events will be taken to its logical end and many dangerous accusations can be levelled against Pakistan due to this.

Furthermore, the attack on the Mehran base has created many difficulties for us. This was an extremely sensitive installment. The security arrangements for this base weren’t less than the most stringent arrangement to be found in Pakistan. Still, highly trained and armed terrorist were able to infiltrate the base and then hit a live target from as close as a mile. It is true that four of the terrorists were killed but there is also the fact that two of them were able to escape.

As if this wasn’t enough, the most explosive news to come forward was that the navy itself had some Al-Qaeda cells in it. Ten members of a cell had been actually apprehended and the investigation was ongoing. Navy personnel had also negotiated with the terrorists but it was their demand that these people should not be punished and that they should be reinstated into their posts. What can be inferred from this? Obviously that Al-Qaeda has spread to an extent in Pakistan that not only is it capable enough to parley with our defence forces but also to demand that its sympathisers not be booted out of their jobs.

What will international defence analysts be speculating about this? Who can stop them from thinking that if there are Al-Qaeda cells in the navy, then the existence of similar cells in the air force and army is a definite possibility? Why can’t these sympathisers be from those deigned to protect these sensitive installments? The troublesome and unsettling speculation taking place in the international media after the Mehran base incident should make us very worried indeed. They should give us sleepless nights. These conjectures are positing that nuclear devices were present on the base and the fact that the terrorists did not reach them is either because of the fact that they do not want destruction on such a large scale or they were unaware of the presence of these devices.

We don’t know of all the facts but the US and the agencies of our enemy countries have cultivated a lot of resources in Pakistan to collect such information. If Al-Qaeda can create its cells in an institution like the navy, why can’t foreign agencies do the same? If moles of the US or any adversarial foreign agency provide this kind of intelligence (i.e. that which confirms that nuclear devices were present in the Mehran base), the US can then use it to go to the Security Council. The revelations of the Iranian President corroborate such reservations.

I don’t think America will be foolhardy enough to destroy our nuclear assets. That would be tantamount to unleashing mini-hell on earth. But what it can do is use the UNSC to place some very harsh sanctions on Pakistan and these sanctions can then be tightened to an extent that Pakistan is left helpless with no other choice but to give up its nuclear assets. After all, it’s no big deal now to accuse that the presence of extremist elements within our forces creates the possibility that they might hand over some nuclear device or part of it to terrorists. Such an accusation will set alarm bells ringing in the entire world.

In normal circumstances, China would be a reliable helper in this case. But if China can be convinced through proofs that the nuclear capability that the terrorists get through Pakistan may be employed against it, then this will create a situation where it will be very easy to convince Pakistan to give up its nuclear assets.

Many dangers seem to be looming large and heading straight for us. But the national unity and concord required to deal with such perils is nowhere in sight.

The writer is one of Pakistan’s most widely read columnists.