With A.Q. Khan's Help, Iran Could be on Nuclear Threshold

Kanchan Gupta, PlanetGuru:

When Abdul Qadeer Khan, the "father" of Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme, was exposed as a rogue scientist who indulged in black market nuclear proliferation by selling technology and components to despotic regimes across the world from North Korea to Libya, few realised the true dimension of his deeds and their implications. READ MORE

The revelation and subsequent public shaming of A.Q. Khan's black marketing of nuclear know- how came one year ago in February 2004. A year later, the huge jigsaw puzzle that is the legacy of his hawking bomb-making blueprints and equipment continues to remain unsolved with many crucial bits and pieces still missing.

Some of the missing pieces have now been found in Iran, which is in the eye of a raging storm over its covert nuclear programme whose real purpose is doubted by both the US and the European Union. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is in the midst of verifying Iranian claims that its programme is meant for peaceful purposes and not for creating a nuclear arsenal.

Not surprisingly, like the proverbial Jack-in-the-box, Khan's name has popped up in the ongoing controversy over Iran's uranium enrichment programme. It was first put out by the American administration that Khan had provided the Iranians with crucial centrifuges that are required for producing weapons grade uranium.

Later, in a surprise public admission of Khan's guilt, the Pakistani government, in a not-so-nuanced statement said he had indeed supplied the Iranians with used centrifuges. Pakistan's admission of guilt was followed by a statement out of the IAEA headquarters in Vienna, saying its experts had been given access to used centrifuges at Pakistani facilities for "comparative analysis" purposes.

Last week's amazing disclosures, which indicate that Khan is going to give the world sleepless nights for months and years to come as further evidence of nuclear proliferation under his tutelage surfaces, have left strategic analysts looking for answers to two key questions.

First, why did Pakistan - only Islamabad claims and Washington concurs that neither the Pakistani Army nor the Pakistani government were aware of Khan's dangerous deeds - agree to provide Iran with critical weapons related know-how and components. If Iran were to develop nuclear weapons, Pakistan would have every reason to be worried more than any other country in the neighbourhood.

Second, why has Pakistan made a public admission of Khan providing centrifuges to Iran and, related to that, why is Islamabad offering an inspection of its used centrifuges by IAEA experts?

In response to the first question, some experts have pointed out that Pakistani Army generals, who could not but have been complicit partners in the black marketing of nuclear technology, blueprints and components - Khan often travelled by special military aircraft to North Korea, Libya and Iran - may be good tacticians, but are awfully poor strategists.

At some stage, it may have made good sense, and therefore amounted to good tactics, to pass on nuclear technology to the Iranians for cheap oil and other benefits whose beneficiaries were Khan and his friends in the Pakistani Army. But they did not have the foresight to think ahead as to how they would deal with a nuclear Iran.

Of course, there are others who believe that Pakistan, by passing on nuclear know-how to Iran, was cocking a snook at America; it was an expression of defiance. Hence the careful selection of countries that were to receive nuclear largesse from it: North Korea, Iran and Libya, each one a declared "enemy" of America.

The Pakistanis guessed, and were not far off the mark, that in the end the US would mollycoddle a defiant Pakistan rather than punish it. By making Khan the fall guy, Pakistan's men in khaki have escaped opprobrium; on the contrary, they have been handsomely rewarded by a strangely grateful American administration which has pledged $640 million in aid during the coming fiscal.

It is in the elaborate charade staged by the Pakistani establishment to proclaim its innocence that we can locate the answer to the second question. Last week's public admission by Pakistan's Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed of Khan's nefarious role in Iran's nuclear programme can be viewed as an outraged innocent denouncing the guilty. And it has been received as such in Washington.

As for offering used Pakistani centrifuges for IAEA inspection, it is more than likely that it is yet another elaborate ploy to get Iran off the hook. If the genetic imprint of the substance on the used centrifuges at Pakistani facilities matches those found on the centrifuges being used in Iran, then the Iranians can claim that it is a carryover from the original site where they were used before being handed over by Khan.

It is unlikely though that the Bush administration will give up on Iran so easily. While nobody in the second Bush administration is spoiling for a fight, at least not yet, if the EU were to fail in its diplomatic efforts in taming Iran's nuclear ambitions, then US-sponsored harsh UN sanctions are a very real possibility.

EU diplomats have been engaged in intense negotiations with the Iranian government and are trying to work out a mutually acceptable declaration that would tie Tehran down to a non-weapons nuclear programme. A draft was circulated at the last round of discussions that concluded in end-February, but it did not meet Iranian approval.

In an official statement last week, the Iranian government has reiterated its willingness to resolve the dispute, which is fast gathering a momentum of its own and may spin out of Tehran's control, through discussions and expressed the hope that its talks with the EU will yield positive result.

The EU, too, is keen to deliver a peaceful resolution; one that would underscore Europe's emphasis on skilful diplomacy as opposed to America's coercive sabre-rattling. However, if negotiations were to fail in the face of Iranian stubbornness, the EU would have no other option but to accede to punitive action by the USA.

There are other implications of Iran's alleged covert nuclear programme, too, that are gradually surfacing.

The Bush Administration has made it abundantly clear that it does not favour India going ahead with the pipeline project to access Iranian natural gas. It has conveyed its reservations and wants the project put on hold for the time being, if not scrapped entirely.

US State Department Secretary Condoleezza Rice raised the issue with her interlocutors during her visit to New Delhi. Later, she said at a joint press conference: "I think our views concerning Iran are very well known by this time and we have communicated to the Indian government our concerns about the gas pipeline between Iran and India through our ambassador."

US Ambassador to India David Mulford had already conveyed to Petroleum Minister Mani Shankar Aiyer his country's reservations about India rushing into any arrangement with Iran and sealing the pipeline deal.

It is believed that the US wants India to put its plans on hold for six months. During the interregnum, it has been politely conveyed by the US that India can look into other options, for instance procuring gas from Turkmenistan instead of Iran. Clearly, the Bush administration want to send across a message to Iran as well as well as use this opportunity to promote American business interests that have a stake in Turkmenistan gas sales.

Informed sources claim that, according to American intelligence estimates, if Iran is indeed feverishly pursuing a covert nuclear weapons programme, as is being alleged, it will conduct tests within six months. While Iranian scientists piece together the components and produce sufficient enriched fuel, Iranian diplomats will keep their European interlocutors engaged in drawn-out negotiations, thus staving off punitive action till the tests are conducted.

Since the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline will require huge investment to create the physical infrastructure, by not-so-subtly hinting at troubled times ahead the American administration has raised serious question marks over the viability of the project as well as the wisdom of going ahead with it. What if European diplomacy yields to coercive sanctions? Or worse, what if Iran becomes the next conflict zone?

Another interpretation that is being proffered by strategic analysts is that the Bush administration would like to see how the situation develops in post-election Iraq. These analysts believe that by upping the ante on Iran's alleged nuclear weapons programme, the Bush administration is trying to push Iran's powerful Shia mullahs into helping put in place a pliant, Washington-friendly Shia government in Baghdad.

A new twist has been added to the tale by a report in last weekend's The Sunday Times of London, according to which the Israeli government is readying to take out the Iranian nuclear facilities by launching a pre-emptive air strike. The influential newspaper claimed that the Israeli plan enjoys the approval of the Bush administration, which has been subsequently denied by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

If seen in the matrix of Middle East politics, a pre-emptive strike by the Israelis may raise howls of protest from Arab states, but none of them is likely to go beyond that. For, if a nuclear armed Shia Iran is a threat to Pakistan, it is no less a threat to Sunni Arabia over which it will seek control with the WMD arsenal that it is accused of manufacturing in the basement.

(Kanchan Gupta is a current affairs analyst. He can be reached at mail2kgupta@yahoo.co.in)