There is an elaborate charade under way following the exposure of the barter and sale of Pakistani nuclear weapons technology to North Korea, Iran and Libya. On Thursday, General Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan’s president, pardoned Abdul Qadeer Khan, the country’s chief atomic bomb scientist, after a televised ‘‘admission’’ that he alone was guilty. Everyone engaged in this piece of theatre knows that Khan was reading from a script. Pakistan’s military — and that means Musharraf — was, without question, aware of and part of this illicit and perilous commerce. Yet the Bush administration’s reaction has been grateful acceptance.We can only hope the explanation is that the administration cut a quiet deal to shut down Pakistan’s network of nuclear sales and detain its participants. Punishing or pardoning Khan is not as important as ending these sales and the production of fissile material in Pakistan, destroying the network, and making sure that the senior officers involved are removed from power.After September 11, 2001, President Bush said that his top priority was to prevent the proliferation of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons to terrorist groups and rogue nations. There is no escaping the fact that Iraq, which did not sell such arms, has been subject to military conquest, while Pakistan, the biggest violator, has been congratulated.If this bewildering contradiction means that the United States has accomplished something behind the scenes, fine. Sometimes realpolitik requires allowing a man like Musharraf, who has been helpful in the war against Al-Qaida and escaped two assassination attempts, to claim to be standing up to foreign pressures.But there is every reason to be highly sceptical of Musharraf, who dons a uniform and a defiant manner one day and switches to a business suit and soft tones the next. Whatever deal is being struck should include real efforts to wean the military from power, develop political parties, invest in public education and build civil society. Musharraf says his country is in a transition to more democracy and transparency. Holding him to his word is one way to make sure that future military leaders are less likely to become merchants of nuclear bomb technology.
