The Sad March of the Bomb : Now Pakistan seems to have joined the club

Pakistan’s costly and covert pursuit of a nuclear weapons capability appears to have ended successfully. Some U.S. officials now believe that earlier this year Pakistan developed--but has not yet tested--a nuclear explosive device.

This ominous achievement probably still leaves Pakistan some years away from having a true nuclear arsenal and the means for delivering weapons to their targets. But the hard work has been done. Pakistan now seems to be an emerging nuclear power, years behind but catching up with its neighbor and bitter rival India, and as a result South Asia is a more dangerous place.

Washington’s assessment of Pakistan’s nuclear progress was signaled earlier this month, when President Bush told Congress he could no longer certify that Pakistan “does not possess a nuclear explosive device.” Certification is required under a 1985 law as a condition for receiving U.S. military and economic aid. That aid, worth $564 million a year, is now suspended, and previously authorized grants and sales totaling $2.7 billion have been frozen.

Seldom has a major U.S. policy decision seemed more inevitable--or its announcement more overdue.

India went nuclear in 1974, and Pakistan began its own program in earnest immediately after. It has pursued that effort assiduously under both dictators and democratically chosen rulers. It has refused to sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty or to allow international inspection of its nuclear facilities unless India also agrees to do so--a not unreasonable condition.

At the same time, Pakistan has always denied having ambitions to acquire nuclear arms, repeatedly assuring Washington that its nuclear intentions were pacific. The weapons program, though, has pretty much been all but an open secret in Pakistan itself. Campaigning for parliamentary office last week, Benazir Bhutto--whose late father launched the country’s nuclear efforts--denounced U.S. complaints and said “we prefer to lay down our lives for the vital nuclear program instead of compromising on it.” This may not be confirmation that nuclear weapons are being developed, but it will do until an explicit acknowledgement comes along.

For a long time U.S. officials found it expedient to publicly accept Pakistani assurances, despite what intelligence agencies were reporting, because Pakistan was a vital conduit for channeling aid to Afghanistan’s resistance forces and because the United States wanted a counterweight to Soviet influence in India. Now, Washington finds that the facts have become too intrusive to ignore.

The multiplication of nuclear-weapons ownership has long been seen as inherently dangerous and destabilizing, which is why Moscow and Washington have long agreed on the need for non-proliferation. The problem is that other countries able to supply nuclear technology and fuels have been far less concerned by the potential spread of nuclear weapons and far less scrupulous in observing safeguards. Pakistan is the latest apparent entrant into the nuclear club. Almost certainly, tragically, it won’t be the last.