Dr. Khan had recently been removed from his post of Scientific Adviser to the Pakistani Prime Minister. Though not arrested he had been advised not to leave town without government permission. Pakistan began its investigation last November when Iranian officials told IAEA that black marketers who had aided Iranian nuclear program had ties with Pakistan. Libya told Pakistani officials that black marketers it had used for its nuclear program also had Pakistani connections. American officials had long believed that Dr. Khan had been sharing nuclear technology with other countries and had been urging Pakistani authorities for his removal. In an interview with CNN's Christiane Amanpour from Davos President Parvez Musharraf categorically denied that actions then being taken by Pakistan had been due to American pressure. "There are vested interests" he said " who want to undermine my authority, my position, the government's position and cast us in a bad light that we are some kind of rubber stamp of the US". General Musharraf emphatically pointed out that there had been no official or governmental involvement in the transfer of nuclear technology. He also added that the accusations against some Pakistani scientists who had done so was based on grounds of personal financial benefits they were alleged to have gained just as there were accusations against some Europeans as well. President Musharraf's emphasis on dissociation of any governmental authority's role in the process of transfer of nuclear technology is borne out by the reactions of people in authority at the time the transfer had taken place.

Earlier reacting to reports that some senior scientists had told investigators that any transfer of nuclear technology to Iran, for example, had been approved by General Mirza Aslam Beg, Army Chief during 1988-91 as Pakistan army tightly controlled nuclear program, General Beg angrily denied the allegations. But he was also reported to have said that Muslim countries should not be asked to give up nuclear programs so long Israel and India possessed nuclear weapons. Branding Pakistan as "one of the world's leading supplier of illicit nuclear technology" New York Times called on Washington not to settle for a repetition of President Musharraf's "history of strong declarations followed by weak and contradictory actions" on the issue of Pakistani investigation on the passage of nuclear technology to Iran Libya and North Korea, and to ensure that nuclear technology pipeline from Pakistan is finally closed down.

It is easier said than done. President Musharraf has to walk a tight rope and effect a compromise amongst disparate elements of Pakistani society. Dr. A.Q.Khan is an icon who presented Pakistan with the ultimate security blanket against presumed threat from archenemy India. Partition of India and Pakistan (and later of Bangladesh) was not an amicable divorce as was the case of separation of the Czech Republic and Slovakia and in some ways was comparable to the dissolution of Yugoslavia. Former Indian ambassador to the US K.S.Bajpayee (Foreign Affairs- May/June 2003) tried to explain in brief the vast gap between India and Pakistan ; the complexity of their history; identity crisis of Pakistan in particular due to Hindu-Muslim divide, stoked by Pakistan but taken up by India as the greatest challenge to her social equilibrium in working out a Hindu-Muslim relations. It is therefore not surprising to see the elation on the streets of Pakistan when the country could detonate more nuclear devices than India did on that fateful day the two countries came out of the closet as nuclear powers. President Musharraf may have to give some weightage to General Aslam Beg's public assertion that any scientist who sold Pakistan's nuclear technology should not be punished (NYT- 27.01.04). A very powerful segment of the establishment could very well oppose severe punishment if it were meted out to the errant scientists for sharing nuclear technology with fellow Muslim countries. An analyst of South Asia Analysis Group( Paper 685 dated 12.05.03) cited a claim by the Chief of Lashkar=e Taeba that his people control two Pakistani nuclear war heads and they were ready any moment to bring them down on the heads of Islam's enemies. The analyst also claimed that Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl was murdered because he had information on Pakistan's nuclear secrets and links with Al-Qaida. Such claims, however, become unsustainable in the light of President Musharraf's interview with Christiane Amanpour (23.01.04) that the Pakistani government had full custodial control, check and supervision, and there were a number of rings of organizations ensuring the safety and security of all the organizations and all nuclear assets. His assertion was further strengthened by President Bush's recent assurance to the world that Pakistani nukes were in safe hands.

Given the current developments in Pakistan it is difficult to assess the robustness and severity of application of non-proliferation measures recently underlined (02.12.03) at the Fletchers School by Under Secretary John Bolton. He warned "rogue" states like Iran, North Korea, Syria, Libya and Cuba that their pursuit of WMD considered hostile to the US interests would not escape either detection or consequences. "If the rogue states" he said "are not willing to follow the logic of non-proliferation norms they mist be prepared to face the logic of adverse consequences". Understandably because of Pakistan's role as a front line state on the war on terror and repeated attempts on the life of President Musharraf Pakistan can not be called a "rogue" state. But undeniably it is a state penetrated by Islamic extremists, and its military, intelligence and religious bodies are heavily influenced by Taliban and Al-Qaida making it, according to Stephen Cohen, one of the most unstable nations of the world. US think tank Cato Institute fears that proliferation of nuclear weapons technology by Pakistan could provide anti-US nations and/or non-state actors with the means to disrupt the security or blackmail western nations/interests. Given the make up of Pakistan's political landscape; marginalization of Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif's parties; emergence of Muttahida- Majlis-e-Amal, a coalition of twenty six religious parties; capture of power by MMA in two provinces bordering Afghanistan Constitutional obligation to bring all laws in conformity with the injunctions of the Holy Quran and Sunnah making Pakistan an Islamic theocracy; US interests could be better served if Washington were to take a long range view of its strategy relating to the war on terror. Many did not see President Musharraf's joining the US in the war on terror as reflective of structural transformation of Pakistani policy, rather a tactical decision to cut its losses after the collapse of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. Another version is the reported choice given by Richard Armitage to President Musharraf of a rock and a hard place i.e. either cooperate or be bombed back into the stone age. The proverbial man from Mars, writes Leon Hader of Cato Institute, viewing US foreign policy after the tragic events of nine-eleven would have been astonished to see the inconsistency of Slobodan Milosevich( a butcher by any standard), a civilian politically elected at least in a quasi-democratic election being branded as "anti-American" and "war criminal" for waging war against Muslims with radical connections in Bosnia and Kosovo; while General Musharraf who came to power in a military coup d'etat and now backed by radical Islamists but praised by Washington as "courageous" and a "visionary leader". One may disagree with Leon Hader's comparison of President Musharraf with Milosevich as one would with Robert Kagan's characterization of Americans as men from Mars and the Europeans as those from Venus. Yet one can not but be alarmed at the unfolding drama linking Pakistani scientists with two members of the axis-of evil.

In this continuing saga of war on terror in which non-proliferation of WMD to both state and non-state actors plays a central role, the relevance of NATO in this age of reduced significance of the UN system can not be over emphasized. NATO's first "out of the area" operation in Afghanistan to oust the Talibans from power , a direct result of nine-eleven terrorist attacks and consequent war on terror, bring us to a brief discussion of NATO's role in the post Cold War world and its raison d'etre. The alliance was formed when the western leaders found the UN security system inadequate to protect and defend in John Foster Dulles' words "our cherished freedom" with military defense, religious faith, and a positive demonstration of western political and social system as a counter attraction to Communism. Canada's Lester Pearson was despondent enough to write " This disunity( in the UN) has now led us to the point where we must frankly and honestly admit that our hope of gaining security through the United Nations, although we do not abandon that hope, is not one which we can soon realize". So NATO came into being. The Prague Summit of November 2002 saw seven former East European and Baltic countries becoming members of the expanded NATO. So despite the fact that NATO's strategic agenda German Unification, integration of Central and Eastern Europe, partnership with Russia, and stabilization of the Balkanshad more or less been achieved; the new threats posed by the proliferation of WMD and terrorism have become new agenda for NATO. Mixed signals from Washington notwithstandingneo-cons belief in America unbound leaving no constraints on American actions abroad vis-à-vis so-called "doves" strategy of transatlantic partnership -- danger of proliferation of WMD and possibility of their falling into wrong hands goaded a worried world to unite in the war on terror. Despite Russian misgivings over expansion of NATO into its backyard President Putin is at one with the US administration in the common belief that the real danger to international security and stability is posed by acquisition of nuclear weapons by rogue states and their possible transfer to terrorists who can not be deterred from using these weapons regardless of human costs. From this point of view the recent developments in Pakistan are so dangerous. Perhaps the rogue scientists apart from being paid exorbitant amounts could plead, say in the case of Iran, nuclearization of a Muslim country to face overwhelming Israeli military dominance in the Middle East. While the Iranian clergy's willingness to embrace nuclearisation could have been induced by the fact that the 1980s baby boom has spawned a new generation which sees neither the fundamentalists' concept of clerical supremacy nor President Khatami's "Islamic democracy" as answer to Iran's present predicament. Given Iranians' fierce sense of national independence Iranian clergy night have thought that acquisition of nuclear weapons would be able to wean away the emerging third force from an inevitable confrontation. In case of North Korea it was exchange of nuclear weapons technology for missile technology which Pakistan did not have. In the case of Libya if was possibly pure and simple greed.

How far President Musharaf's government can go in punishing the errant scientists would depend on how far he is allowed to go by the different interest groups in Pakistan. But the inescapable fact remains that unless states are made accountable for misdeeds by its citizens nuclear non-proliferation will remain a distant dream and the world, totally destroying the dream of a peaceful world dreamt by the people because of the end of the Cold War, will become a horrendously dangerous place once again.

i Anwarul Masud is a former Secretary and ambassador.