Nerve Endings Firing Away

More proof emerges that there is a serious disconnect between Pakistan’s polity and military. Pakistan has been repeatedly ruled by military dictators who have deemed duly elected political leaders unfit to rule. Recently, Dawn, Pakistan’s premier English newspaper conceded that “Pakistan’s military had prepared a nuclear-tipped missile to fight back a possible Indian attack during the Kargil crisis. According to the book, former US president Bill Clinton had conveyed this news to the then Pakistan prime minister Nawaz Sharif who was taken aback by the revelation” [via Rediff News]. According to the article in Dawn, the book even mentions that Bill Clinton likened the situation to the Cuban missile crisis that brought the world on the brink of a nuclear war in the early sixties.

Did the nuclear crisis really loom and act as a deterrent to any overt hostile action beyond pushing the infiltrators over the LOC? Had the Indian establishment known of this nuclear tipped missile and prepared one of its own? Of course, any first-strike nuclear attack by Pakistan would involve a full scale response by India, obliterating Pakistan’s existence. But the hardliners in Pakistan wouldn’t hesitate to dispatch a nuclear missile to India in spite of its subsequent harsher consequences.

However, the keyword here is that the military was acting independently of the political leadership regards nuclear deployment. This is a dangerous scenario. If you remember correctly, the Cuban missile crisis was primarily averted due to Kennedy’s steadfast resolve not to indulge his generals’ military response. Lately CNN has been reporting a lot on nuclear terrorism and Pakistan’s central role in abetting or at least being responsible for such an attack. Of course, the AQ Khan incident and his farce of his public apology and subsequent pardon isn’t a distant memory yet. Pakistan has proven to being an irresponsible nuclear power and its arsenal should be grounded immediately. Will the so-called world powers realize this simple truth before it is too late?