Pakistan Gets a Pass

Pakistan is engaging in a disquieting escalation of its nuclear capabilities:

South Asia may be heading for a nuclear arms race that could lead to arsenals growing into the hundreds of nuclear weapons, or at a minimum vastly expanded stockpiles of military fissile material," the Isis report said.

The Pakistani army is thought to have about 50 uranium warheads. India and Pakistan, which have fought three conventional wars in less than 60 years, already have nuclear weapons and an arsenal of missiles capable of reaching far beyond each other's territory.

There has so far been no official reaction from Islamabad, although the Washington Post quoted an unnamed "senior Pakistani official" as acknowledging that an expansion of the country's nuclear programme was under way.

Ayesha Siddiqi Agha, a Pakistani writer on defence issues, pointed out that since Washington had proposed a nuclear deal with India, the Pakistani establishment had been keen to "match it": "The signal is that while India surges ahead, Pakistan has ways to pull them off balance. So this may be about restoring a psychological balance between the two."

So let's see: Islamic country. Hiding place for Al Qaeda and Bin Laden. Unstable government with plenty of Islamist sympathizers in it. A country with an existing nuclear arsenal. A country that could be plunged into chaos if assassins finally succeed in killing its president, Pervez Musharraf. (They've tried before). Home country of nuclear scientist A. Q. Khan, who has spread nuclear secrets to Libya and North Korea. Well, it seems obvious what the United States should do:

Bomb Iran.