Musharraf may now be the last best hope of Pakistan

Forget Iran, forget North Korea, forget the emerging Chinese superpower and forget the resurgent nationalism of Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Even before Benazir Bhutto’s assassination, Pakistan was the country that arguably posed the greatest challenge to the West’s security. Now it is an even greater challenge.

Pakistan is the first Muslim country to have acquired nuclear weapons. Her nuclear arsenal was developed in the 1970s by Benazir’s father, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, to protect the country from the possibility of attack by India. Whether Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal is maintained purely for self-defence could now become a moot point, particularly if the Islamists make a strong showing in the forthcoming Pakistani elections — assuming that President Pervaiz Musharraf holds true to his pledge to return his troubled nation to democracy.

Washington, which bankrolls Mr Musharraf to the tune of billions of dollars in return for his support in tackling Islamic extremists, believes that there are enough security safeguards to prevent Pakistan’s nukes falling into the wrong hands. But other security experts are not so sure. M.J. Gohel, who heads the highly respected Asia-Pacific Foundation, the London-based security and intelligence think-tank, has warned that there is a strong possibility that parts of Pakistan’s nuclear technology could fall into the hands of Islamic militants. ‘It is a very, very valid risk. It’s only a matter of time before al-Qa’eda or somebody sympathetic to them gets hold of nuclear weapons,’ he warns.

Nor is it just Pakistan’s home-grown extremists who hanker after Pakistan’s nuclear treasure trove. Thanks to the entrepreneurial skills of Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan, the ‘father’ of Pakistan’s nuclear bomb, Iran, North Korea and Libya have all acquired the technological know-how to develop an atom bomb; Dr Khan kindly sold them the blueprints.

Libya, courtesy of some sterling work by Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, has publicly disowned its nuclear ambitions after Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, the country’s eccentric leader, was persuaded that he might suffer a similar fate to that of Iraq’s Saddam Hussein if he persisted with developing weapons of mass destruction.