PAKISTAN SPECIAL

New Delhi, 15 November 2007

Civil War In Pakistan

WHO CONTROLS THE NUKES?

By Sreedhar

The conflicting reports coming from Pakistan indicate that a civil war like situation has erupted in the country. The street demonstrations by anti-Musharraf forces have already created mayhem across Pakistan. In principal cities like Karachi, Lahore and Peshawar there is a total breakdown of law and order. The police and the paramilitary forces are having a tough time in confronting the unruly mobs.

Whether these demonstrations are organized by the Pakistan People’s Party, the young lawyers of the Bar Council of Pakistan or some other political party is not clear as yet. The developments since November 3 clearly indicate that the opposition to President Musharraf is increasing but is still unorganised.

In these circumstances, Gen. Musharraf has very few options other than calling the Armed Forces to meet the challenge to his rule by his opponents. The crucial question today: To what extent are the Armed Forces willing to fight against their own people?

More so against the background, that about 25 per cent of the Pakistani Armed Forces are from the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) and another 10-15 per cent are from Baluchistan, according to Western estimates. The officers and men from these two provinces, deployed to meet the challenge posed by the opposition to Gen Musharraf’s regime, may not be willing to fight against their own people.

Another variable is the large scale presence of the Pasthuns and Baluchis who are governed by tribal loyalties. Such groups normally will not fight against their own kith and kin for no reason or rhyme. And the ‘problem provinces’ for both the Musharraf regime and the international community are the NWPF and Baluchistan, both bordering Afghanistan.

According to one assessment by the Western intelligence agencies it is highly unlikely that the Pasthun and Baluch soldiers will fight against their own tribesmen. Nor will they allow Punjabi soldiers to take any action against the opponents of Gen Musharraf’s regime in these provinces. The large scale surrender of the police, paramilitary forces and even the army to radical groups in the two provinces and adjoining areas indicate that things are not going smoothly.

Such a situation is making many observers conclude that the command and control culture of the Pakistani Armed Forces is on the verge of a breakdown.

How the Army High Command will react to this new situation is anybody’s guess. If we go by past precedence, the Army High Command quickly intervened and replaced the leadership. Whether such a situation can be repeated now seems to be highly improbable. Given that the fractured Pakistani Armed Forces already discredited by the people, are on the defensive. Therefore, it is highly doubtful that a bloodless coup can replace Gen Musharraf.

In this unfolding complex situation there is considerable amount of anxiety about the future of the nuclear weapons under the Pakistani Armed Forces custody. Even when the Armed Forces were united and governed by the command culture system, people like A.Q. Khan ran their own clandestine nuclear proliferation network and amassed wealth beyond their means. And some reports say even today the network is following.   

The radical Islamic groups articulated the idea of Islamic bomb to propagate the radical Islamic ideology. In the process, they managed to influence a large number of men in uniform to their cause. In the late 1990s, there were even reports that the Pakistani nuclear scientists had met people like Osama Bin Laden and Mullah Umar on a number of occasions and tried to involve them in a nuclear weapon proliferation network.

Recent reports from Pakistan state that the Pasthun and Baluch-origin Pakistani Armed Forces have expressed their support to the cause of the al-Qaeeda and Taliban type of governance. Significantly, in this extraordinary situation it needs to be probed as to who has the complete control of nuclear weapons in Pakistan.  

Today, even the western strategic community is concerned about this aspect. All we know is that when the Pakistani nuclear weapons programme got underway in the 1980s, the US closely followed it. However, it refused to bring any pressure on Pakistan to discontinue its nuclear programme, as Washington is doing today against Iran. Apparently the Cold War politics and Pakistan’s relevance in the Cold War games made the US overlook Islamabad’s nuclear programme.

This in no way gives an answer to the current crisis of who owns the nuclear weapons in Pakistan. One can safely assume that the leadership of the radical Islamic groups will be making subtle moves to influence the key persons in the Pakistani nuclear establishment to their side. One can also assume that sufficient incentives, material or ideological will be offered to these key persons of the nuclear establishment.

The Pakistani nuclear establishment has shown their vulnerability to such moves in the past. Even if they are not in a position to provide a nuclear weapon to the radical Islamic groups, they can certainly provide access to ‘dirty weapons’ (enriched uranium) to use in public places. That will give enough psychological advantage to the radical Islamic groups over their adversaries.

In these circumstances, the international strategic community is caught with the worst case scenario of nuclear terrorism without any solution in sight. All that we have is unconfirmed reports from Washington stating that they have managed to lay their hands on Pakistan’s nuclear weapons. No one is sure to what extent the US had succeeded in this exercise.

If one believes that free and fair elections in Pakistan will resolve all questions, this is not correct. The last free and fair elections in Pakistan in 2002 saw radical Islamic groups gaining strength in the NWFP and Baluchistan. Since then, both these provinces have become safe havens for the al-Qaeeda and Taliban who are trying to spread their influence in adjacent Afghanistan. In fact, all the Karzai Government’s troubles in Kabul are from Pakistan’s NWFP and Baluchistan provinces.

In sum, if there are free and fair elections in January 2008, as been promised by Gen. Musharraf, there is no guarantee that the radical Islamic groups will not improve their position further in Pakistan’s polity. In such an eventuality, the status of nuclear weapons there will get further complicated. ----- INFA

(Copyright India News & Feature Alliance)