With global attention focused on the U.S.-led face-off with Tehran over the nuclear issue, Pakistan has ingeniously seized the opportunity to give a quiet burial to the worst proliferation scandal in world history, involving the Pakistani transfer of nuclear knowhow and equipment to three states — Iran, Libya and North Korea.

On May 2, Pakistan announced the closure in the scandal-related case, as it freed from jail the last of the 11 nuclear scientists imprisoned more than two years ago for suspected roles in the covert transfers. The 12th figure, Abdul Qadeer Khan, the ring’s alleged mastermind, was granted immunity from prosecution and has been made to stay at home under tight security since his February 2004 televised confession on illicit nuclear dealings.

Contrast the international crisis being contrived over Iran — a country that would take at least 10 years to acquire nuclear-weapons capability after freeing itself from International Atomic Energy Agency inspections — with the lack of any response to Pakistan’s defiant statement that "as far we are concerned this chapter is closed."

And notice the dramatic irony that at the very time Tehran is under pressure to come clean on its imports of Pakistani nuclear designs and items, the exporting country has announced closure of the probe. A full international investigation could yield answers to several key unresolved Iran-related issues cited by the IAEA in its report released April 28.

It was the Pakistani proliferation ring that gave the Iranian nuclear program its start.

No one to date has been charged, let alone put on trial, in Pakistan for involvement in a clandestine proliferation ring whose international-security ramifications thus far exceed Iran’s enrichment of a minute amount of uranium. None of the actors in the scandal has been allowed by Pakistan to be questioned by the IAEA or any other outside investigators, although Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf has acknowledged transfers of bomb know-how, including complete uranium-enrichment centrifuges, to Iran, North Korea and Libya from 1987 to 2003.

In fact, the principal actors are not A.Q. Khan and his fellow scientists but the Pakistan military and intelligence. To ensure that the role of the principal actors is not exposed, the entire blame was pinned on a group of 12 "greedy" scientists led by Khan, and then these very men have been religiously kept away from international investigators.

What’s more, the military — which has always controlled the nuclear program — claimed that it wasn’t aware that nuclear secrets were being sold until Libya and Iran began spilling the beans. As part of Pakistan’s nukes-for-missiles swap with North Korea, a Pakistani C-130 military transport aircraft, for example, was photographed loading missile parts in Pyongyang in 2002. Yet Musharraf claimed he was in the dark.

No country has concocted a more ridiculous tale than Pakistan as an excuse for roguish conduct. The uncovering of the proliferation ring should have persuaded Islamabad’s Western allies to distance themselves from the military and invest in the only real guarantee for Pakistan’s future as a stable, moderate state — its civil society. Instead, the Bush administration went along with Islamabad’s charade because it sees the Pakistan military as central to U.S. strategic interests in that country. It even lent a helping hand to the Musharraf regime to dress up the pretense as reality.

Such is America’s ability to shape international perceptions that the world has been made to believe that A.Q. Khan, on his own, set up and ran a nuclear Wal-Mart. And that Khan’s network of "private entrepreneurs" had only less than a dozen Pakistani scientists, including his right-hand man, Mohammad Farooq, who has just been freed from incarceration.

It was Libya, seeking to re-enter the international mainstream, that first disclosed the existence of the Pakistani proliferation ring, but the United States took the credit by stage-managing an event in October 2003. With the help of documents Tripoli had turned over to Washington, a German cargo ship was intercepted en route to Libya with centrifuge components routed through Dubai. The 21st-century fable of a Khan-run nuclear supermarket busted by the U.S. has now become part of American nuclear folklore.

Long before Khan turned from a national icon to a national scapegoat, he had been a favorite of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency during the period when Washington knew that Pakistan was developing nuclear weapons. America turned a blind eye to the underground Pakistani bomb program for the same reason that China aided Islamabad’s nuclear and missile ambitions. Not only did the CIA twice shield Khan from arrest in Europe, it also had a likely hand in the disappearance of Khan’s legal files from the Amsterdam court that convicted him, according to recent Dutch revelations.

As disclosed by former Dutch Prime Minister Ruud Lubbers last August, the CIA protected Khan from arrest and prosecution in Europe in 1975 and 1986. The Dutch government did not take Khan into custody at the request of the CIA, which pretended that it wanted "to follow him."

Khan was sentenced in absentia by Judge Anita Leeser in 1983 to four years in prison for stealing Dutch enrichment secrets on the basis of which Pakistan’s Kahuta plant had by then been set up. After the conviction was overturned on a technicality, U.S. intelligence may have influenced the Dutch decision not to bring new charges against Khan, whose case files, according to Judge Leeser, disappeared "on purpose."

Now, karmic justice has caught up with Khan. After having been assisted for years by the CIA, Khan has become the butt of U.S. vilification.

More broadly, the U.S. should have foreseen the consequences of its action in winking at Pakistan’s covert nuclear program. It is well documented how the Pakistan military helped build nuclear weapons with materials and equipment illegally procured from overseas through intermediaries in Dubai and front companies set up in Europe by its Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency. What could not be procured from the West was imported covertly from ally China.

With the ISI spearheading operations and Khan as the brain, the military ran the world’s most successful nuclear-smuggling ring. That success only bred proliferation in the reverse direction — out of Pakistan.

There is a long history to how Pakistani nuclear mendacity has been aided by America’s pursuit of politically expedient foreign-policy goals. Now, by whitewashing Islamabad’s official complicity in the sale of nuclear secrets, the U.S. can only spur more rogue proliferation in the future.

Despite a military quagmire in Iraq and instability in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the Bush administration is itching to fashion a continuous arc of volatility between Israel and India by taking on Iran. The White House openly seeks to foment regime change in Tehran while it simultaneously pursues coercive diplomacy, backed by the tacit threat of military strikes, on the nuclear issue.

Compare the Bush team’s leniency toward Pakistan with its belligerence against Iran. America and its allies want a U.N. Security Council resolution that would strip Iran of its legal rights under the 1970 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty by ordering it to cease all IAEA-safeguarded enrichment and reprocessing activities, including research and development and the construction of a heavy-water reactor. Yet, Washington and its three Tehran-bashing friends — Britain, France and Germany — have said nothing on the Musharraf regime’s use of the downward spiral on Iran to release the last remaining Pakistani scientist from preventive custody and cheekily announce that the proliferation case is over, with no further investigation planned or required.

America’s indulgence toward Pakistan defies logic. President George W. Bush invaded Iraq to eliminate weapons of mass destruction that were not there but has allowed Pakistan, with real WMD and al-Qaida sanctuaries, to escape international censure for its egregious nuclear transfers to three states.

The IAEA demands additional documentation or data from Iran regarding its P-1 and P-2 centrifuges. Consecutive IAEA reports have harped on the Iranian refusal to hand over a 1987 document from the Pakistani ring offering to supply "drawings, specifications and calculations" for an enrichment facility, along with "materials for 2,000 centrifuge machines" and data on "uranium re-conversion and casting capabilities." The IAEA, to "understand the full scope of the offer made by the network in 1987," is also seeking a copy of a second 15-page document.

A good way to get around Tehran’s reluctance to share full information is for Washington and its friends to facilitate IAEA investigations into the Pakistani ring. Several key outstanding issues on Iran could be readily settled if the IAEA were permitted to do the obvious — probe the front part of the supply line in the country where it originated. Yet the U.S.-backed Musharraf regime on May 2 again rejected that idea, declaring, "There is no question of direct access."

Even the task of containing the risks of further Pakistani leakage in the future cannot be met without verifiably unplugging the various links in the elaborate Pakistani nuclear-supply chain. A charade that hushes up the role of the military — in the interest of Musharraf and the U.S. — is hardly the answer to those risks.

(C) Japan Times

NEW DELHI — With Iran rebuffing the United Nations Security Council, yet another global hot spot is emerging in the vast but volatile region between India and Israel. This arc of volatility between the only two democracies in the region has been made worse by the developments in Iraq, Lebanon, Gaza, Syria, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Now U.S. President George W. Bush is itching for a showdown over Tehran’s defiant refusal to bow to the Security Council demand that it immediately suspend uranium enrichment. Eager to divert attention from his failures in Iraq and Afghanistan, Bush has pursued an approach on Iran in which carrots have been dangled merely to legitimize his first choice to use sticks. If Bush were to use the sticks against Iran — either by imposing new sanctions or carrying out punishing airstrikes — a bad situation would become worse in an arc already bristling with failed or failing states.

In its long-delayed response to the package of incentives offered by the five permanent Security Council members and Germany, Tehran has refused to suspend enrichment as demanded by the recent Security Council Resolution 1696. Instead it has shrewdly proposed immediate talks on finding a compromise settlement, tantalizingly leaving open the possibility that it might suspend enrichment as part of a negotiated bargain. Not surprisingly, this offer has been rejected by the Bush team.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is a technical organization whose governing board has increasingly been politicized over the Iran issue. In its assessments, the IAEA still insists it has neither seen any "indications of diversion" of nuclear materials for non-peaceful purposes nor found any "conclusive evidence" that Iran is attempting to produce nuclear weapons. Yet, such is the politics waged through the IAEA’s governing board and the Security Council that Iran has been commanded to accept standards not applicable to other nonnuclear states in the world.

For example, the IAEA board resolution of Feb. 4 seeks to hold Iran to a much higher standard. It demands that Iran commit itself to "implement transparency measures . . . which extend beyond the formal requirements of the Safeguards Agreement and Additional Protocol." More explicitly, Iran has been asked by the IAEA board and the U.N. Security Council to forgo its right under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) to pursue work on a nuclear fuel cycle even under stringent international monitoring.

While Iran is being put in the international penalty box before clinching evidence against it has been found, Pakistan has been allowed to go scot-free despite having been caught red-handed running the world’s biggest illicit nuclear-exports ring through its military and scientific establishments. Worse, the IAEA board has not empowered the IAEA’s inspectors to probe the Pakistani supply network even to find answers to the outstanding issues relating to Iran’s past unlawful imports.

Instead, a single individual, A.Q. Khan, was conveniently made the scapegoat for a far-reaching Pakistani proliferation ring involving admitted transfers of prohibited nuclear items and blueprints to Iran, Libya and North Korea.

Contrast also the diametrically opposite ways the Security Council has been used to deal with the Iran and Pakistan cases. Following the uncovering of the Pakistani proliferation ring, the Security Council passed Resolution 1540, which made no reference to Pakistan or any of its citizens but instead urged the entire world to share the responsibility. The resolution obligated all states to establish domestic controls to ensure that terrorists and other non-state actors do not get hold of materials related to weapons of mass destruction.

The United States invaded Iraq to eliminate WMD that were not there, but has allowed terrorist-haven Pakistan, with real WMD, to escape international scrutiny and censure for selling nuclear secrets to other states.

On the other hand, the U.S. succeeded last month in getting the Security Council to pass Resolution 1696 against Iran with harsh, intimidating language. The resolution, with its deadline of Aug. 31, demands that "Iran shall suspend all enrichment-related and reprocessing activities, including research and development" and threatens "appropriate measures under Article 41 of Chapter VII" of the U.N. charter.

There can be little doubt that Iran has engaged in illicit actions and provocative rhetoric. It was not until an Iranian dissident group blew the whistle in 2002 that Tehran admitted it had built secret facilities in Natanz and Arak. Nothing better illustrates Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s irresponsible rhetoric than his threat to "wipe out Israel."

Yet, with Tehran turning down the core demand of Resolution 1696, it will not be easy for the U.S. to keep Russia and China on its side as it attempts to take out the sticks against Iran. Moscow and Beijing voted for Resolution 1696 only after eliminating language that could have been used to justify punitive action against Iran. The resolution merely says "further decisions will be required" in case of Iranian noncompliance. The U.S. says Tehran cannot be trusted with fuel-cycle technologies and insists on an immediate cessation of Iranian enrichment work — a demand it can enforce only by militarily taking out the concerned Iranian facilities.

Rather than be a precondition to negotiations with Tehran, the demand for the sustained suspension of Iranian enrichment activity should have been pursued as part of a negotiated deal. Iran, which has always insisted on the legal right to enrich uranium, is being asked to concede the main point of negotiations before the talks have started. Had Iran been allowed to save face in public, it could have conceded the same demand as part of a negotiated bargain. Indeed, Iran so far has enriched only a minute amount of uranium — to less than 4 percent, well below the weapons-usable level.

The U.S.-encouraged referral of the Iran case to the Security Council only weakened the bargaining capacity of Washington and its three European partners, with Tehran responding by resuming low-level enrichment. Now the U.S. is dependent on securing the backing of Russia and China for any move.

The U.S. and Iran have both made a major strategic error in the current standoff. Had Tehran not agreed following the November 2004 Paris agreement to a voluntary but temporary halt to all enrichment and reprocessing activity, it would not have come under swirling international pressure to maintain such a moratorium. What Iran accepted of its own accord has become the very benchmark that the Security Council is now seeking to apply.

For its part, the U.S. has seriously erred in seeking to enforce an enrichment moratorium when a better way to choke Iran’s nuclear ambitions would have been to pressure it to ratify the Additional Protocol it already has signed. The Additional Protocol would give the IAEA enduring legal powers to subject Iran to stringent, challenging inspections. Now the current face-off has prompted Tehran not only to suspend its implementation of the Additional Protocol but also to hold out the threat to withdraw from the NPT and kick out IAEA inspectors — the route North Korea chose.

Despite Bush’s desire for punitive action against Iran, the wise way to tackle Iran is through sustained international pressure. Any penal steps against a theocratic state that has already faced assorted sanctions for more than a quarter-century would only play into the hands of the Iranian clergy and its political deputies led by Ahmadinejad. It should not be forgotten that Iran’s stance on the nuclear issue enjoys broad political support at home, including from moderates and those opposed to the clerical regime.

A confrontational approach indeed is likely to prove counterproductive, adding to the list of Western blunders on Iran, including the 1953 externally scripted overthrow of nationalist Mohammed Mossadeq and the 1980 U.S.-encouraged Iraqi aggression under Saddam Hussein against postrevolution Iran.

Today, historical sensitivity and prudent diplomacy are necessary to help steer Iran in the right direction. Diplomacy is clearly a much better option for several reasons.

First, there is no real military option against Iran. With U.S. troops already stretched thin in Iraq, the situation in Afghanistan deteriorating and the recent Israeli invasion of Lebanon not helping matters, Bush can only think of unleashing U.S. air power against Iran. Airstrikes, however, will only drive home the message that building nuclear bombs offers Iran the best line of defense.

Second, the world has already seen the larger consequences when the U.S. and Israel have embraced military options to complicated regional problems. Not only will airstrikes on Iran compound the security situation in Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon, but also tie down the U.S. military in the arc of states between Israel and India.

Third, the imposition of additional sanctions on Iran, especially in the energy realm, would only constrict the already-tight world oil supplies and further drive up prices, affecting the global economy. Penal measures against Iran (the second-largest producer in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) would surely have a greater impact on world oil supplies and prices than the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Unlike in 2003, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and other OPEC producers do not have the spare capacity to make up a supply deficit.

Fourth, a military or sanctions approach, and the likely Iranian reaction to it, will only fuel the turbulence, violence and extremism in the arc of volatility. The greater upheaval would mean that free, secular, pluralistic societies would become an even more likely target of international terrorism. The international emphasis should be on stabilizing this zone, not on adding fuel to the fires raging there.

Fifth, despite the justifiability of the efforts to make Iran fully comply with its international obligations and to ensure that it does not pursue a nuclear-weapons program, the nonproliferation challenge posed by the Iran issue should not be exaggerated. Iran is years away from acquiring the capability to build nuclear weapons. And it is unlikely to attain such capability as long as the IAEA is tightly monitoring its nuclear program, as it has been ever since it discovered undeclared Iranian nuclear activity.

Sixth, the attempt to single out Iran and enforce unique standards carries the risks of undermining the credibility and effectiveness of international institutions. When a Security Council resolution does not have even the pretense of equity, how can the target country be made to accept flagrantly discriminatory standards? By challenging the overt effort to divide nonnuclear states into two categories — those that can and cannot pursue nuclear fuel-cycle capabilities — Iran is determined to bring matters to a head in the crisis-torn NPT regime. Rather than arbitrarily fashion a double-layered regime of fuel-cycle possessors and fuel-cycle abstainers, a new global consensus on standards governing fissile materials should be sought.

Seventh, with the security scenarios in Iraq, Lebanon and Afghanistan getting very difficult, Iran realizes the West needs its help to stabilize the situation in those countries. Tehran, therefore, is likely to insist, more than ever before, on getting tangible diplomatic, economic and security benefits from the West before it makes nuclear concessions.

At issue today are Iran’s intentions, not actual capabilities. The intentions can be effectively monitored and checkmated through stepped-up IAEA inspections and by greater multilateral cooperation on export controls to ensure that no sensitive items or designs reach Iran, especially from China, Russia and Pakistan.

Tehran may still be willing to halt enrichment as an outcome of a successful bargaining process. For that to happen, it needs to be offered a face-saving formula. One way would be to allow Iran to pursue largely symbolic, research-related enrichment activity on a tiny scale under very tight IAEA monitoring. A variant of that could be to let Tehran do pre-enrichment activity — process natural uranium into uranium hexafluoride, to be shipped to Russia for enrichment and returned to Iran as finished fuel assemblies. A third way would be to try and reach agreement to halt national fuel-cycle activities across the Middle East.

Washington, for its part, can help strengthen the hands of moderates in Iran — the only Islamic state other than Turkey with a well-developed civil society — by agreeing to discuss the restoration of diplomatic relations with Tehran and the de-freezing of Iranian assets in the U.S. Given that Iran remains a part of Bush’s "axis of evil," Tehran would surely seek credible security assurances from the U.S.

Prudent diplomacy backed by stringent IAEA safeguards can ensure that Iran never develops nuclear weapons. But there can be no effective diplomacy without a constructive atmosphere. This means no preconditions, no artificial deadlines to negotiations, and no threats by any side.