What Next - A Sunni Bomb? By Pervez Hoodbhoy for NewAgeIslam.

com The Islamic Republic of Iran stands at the threshold to the Bomb. In 2010 it had more than enough low enriched uranium (LEU, some 2,152 kilograms) to make its f irst bombs worth of weapons-grade uranium, which could have been done in roughly ten weeks if this LEU had been fed into the 4,186 centrifuges that it was then o perating . Thousands of other centrifuges are also known to be operating at Nata nz. Even if it had not received a bomb design from Pakistans A.Q.Khan, the six-de cade old physics of implosion devices would still not be a mystery to Irans sophi sticated nuclear scientists. With sufficient technical capacity, it appears that Iran now awaits only a political decision to make the Bomb. What if Iran chooses to cross the threshold? Among other things, it would be a p owerful stimulus for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to follow suit. Should the King dom also succeed, it would have created yet another denizen of the nuclear world the first Sunni bomb. Why the first? Of course, nuclear Pakistan is largely a S unni state too but its bomb was motivated at least initially by the desire to co unter Indias. Iran enthusiastically hailed Pakistans test in May 1998; clearly it did not see Pakistans bomb as being directed towards it. On the other hand, Sunni Saudi Arabia sees Shia Iran as its primary enemy. Saudi Arabia and Iran are bitter rivals that, post Iranian Revolution, have vied for influence in the Muslim world. Saudi Arabia has the world s largest petrole um reserves, Iran the second. Both are theocracies, with their respective theolo gies in a conflict that began with the death of the Prophet of Islam some 15 cen turies ago. Saudi Arabia is Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques and the birthplace of Islam. It is the leader of the Sunni world, culturally Arab, and a long time client of the United States. On the other hand, Iran is a Persian Shia state th at, after the Revolution, sought to be the leader of all Muslim revolutionaries, both Shia and Sunni, who wanted to confront the West. While much of that ardour has gone, it seeks to project its power and influence in Iraq, Lebanon, and Pal estine. Thanks to Wikileaks, it is now well known that that King Abdullah of Saudi Arabi a had repeatedly urged the US to destroy Irans nuclear program and cut off the hea d of the snake by launching military strikes . More recently, on 8 June 2011, the influential former head of Saudi intelligence and ambassador in London and Wash ington, Prince Turki bin Faisal, spoke to an audience from the British and Ameri can military and security community at Molesworth air force base in England. It was a long speech that covered all aspects of Saudi security doctrine. Only a pa rt of his speech was reported in the international press; some other parts are w orth a careful listen. Faisal begins by reminding his audience of why the Kingdom feels so confident to day: She is the cradle of Islam, a religion that has today an estimated 1.2 billi on adherents. Saudi Arabia represents over 20% of the combined GDP of the Middle East-North Africa (MENA) region.the stock market represents about 50% of the ent ire stock market capitalization of the MENA region.Saudi Aramco, the Kingdoms nati onal oil company, is the worlds largest producer and exporter of petroleum and ha s by far the worlds largest sustained production capacity infrastructure at about 12.5 million barrels-per-day and also has the worlds largest spare capacity curr ently estimated at over 4 million barrels-per-day or about 70% of global unused capacity. Describing Iran as a paper tiger with steel claws, Faisal accuses Iran of using th ese claws for its meddling and destabilizing efforts in countries with Shiite majo rities. After saying that In a certain sense, Saudi Arabia and Iran are uniquely p

ositioned to be at odds, Faisal then goes on to express his countrys position on n uclear weapons: First, it is in our interest that Iran does not develop a nuclear weapon, for their doing so would compel Saudi Arabia, whose foreign relations a re now so fully measured and well assessed, to pursue policies that could lead t o untold and possibly dramatic consequences. This is why, through various initia tives, we are sending messages to Iran that it is their right, as it is any nati ons right, and as we ourselves are doing, to develop a civilian nuclear program, but that trying to parlay that program into nuclear weapons is a dead end. The Saudi opposition to Israeli nuclear weapons was mild and ritualistic: A Zone Free of Weapons of Mass Destruction is the best means to get Iran and Israel to give up nuclear weapons. Such a Zone must be accompanied by a rewards regime tha t provides economic and technical support for countries that join; plus a nuclea r security umbrella guaranteed by the permanent members of the Security Council. Clearly, Saudi enthusiasm for the Bomb comes from Iran, not Israel. ISLAMIC BOMB? Once upon a time the Bomb was neither Sunni nor Shia, just plain Islamic. Appendin g Islamic to Bomb would sometimes cause some Muslims to take umbrage; how could the weapon of ultimate destruction be associated with their religion? Others welcome d it as a sign of power. Regardless, the concept of Islamic Bomb was first intro duced by a Muslim leader rather than any westerner. Addressing posterity from hi s death cell in a Rawalpindi jail, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the architect of Pakista n s nuclear program, wrote in 1977: We know that Israel and South Africa have ful l nuclear capability. The Christian, Jewish, and Hindu civilizations have this c apability. The communist powers also possess it. Only the Islamic civilization w as without it, but that position was about to change. Another Muslim leader stressed the need for a bomb belonging collectively to Isl am. Addressing an Islamic conference in Teheran in 1992, the Iranian vice-presid ent, Sayed Ayatollah Mohajerani said, Since Israel continues to possess nuclear w eapons, we, the Muslims, must cooperate to produce an atomic bomb, regardless of U.N. efforts to prevent proliferation. In the celebrations following the 1998 nuclear tests, Pakistans Jamaat-e-Islami p araded bomb and missile replicas through city streets. It saw in the bomb a sure sign of a reversal of fortunes and a panacea for the ills that have plagued Mus lims since the end of the Golden Age of Islam. In 2000, I captured on video the statements of several leaders of religious and jihadist political parties in Pak istan Maulana Khalil-ur-Rahman and Maulana Sami-ul-Haq who also demanded a bomb for Islam. One important bin Laden supporter, Pakistans General Hameed Gul an influential Is lamist leader and former head of ISI, the countrys powerful intelligence agency h as made clear how he feels. In a widely watched nationally televised debate with me, General Hameed Gul snarled: Your masters (that is, the Americans) will nuke us Muslims just as they nuked Hiroshima; people like you want to denuclearize an d disarm us in the face of a savage beast set to devour the world. The Islamic Bomb is indeed a popular concept in Pakistan. Although General Gul i s an extremist and does not mind being called one, it is true that the unequivoc al U.S. military, unqualified economic and political support for the Israeli occ upation of Arab lands has created enormous bitterness across the Muslim world. A fter the devastation of Gaza in 2008, many newspapers in Muslim countries contai ned letters from their readers expressing the wish for nuclear weapons. The desi re for an atomic weapon to seek vengeance though immoral and foolish in my opini on is not limited to extremists.

For all these strong expressions, barring extreme circumstances, the Islamic Bomb cannot become reality. It is difficult, if not impossible, to conceive of any Mu slim state declaring that it has an Islamic bomb that would be used for defense of the ummah against the United States or Israel (but it is worth recalling that this kind of extended deterrence, as it was called, was practiced aggressively by both superpowers in the Cold War, including during the Cuban Missile Crisis). N othing in the history of Pakistan has shown a substantial commitment to any panIslamic cause, although from time to time there has been empty speculation that Pakistan would provide a nuclear umbrella for Arab countries in a crisis. This does not, of course, mean that individual engineers and scientists will not respond to a higher calling. For example, it is widely known that two highly plac ed nuclear engineers, Syed Bashiruddin Mahmood and Chaudhry Majid, both well kno wn to espouse radical Islamic views, had journeyed several times into Afghanista n in 2000 and had met with Osama bin Laden. Some months earlier, Mahmood had res igned from his position as director of the Khushab reactor in angry protest at t he governments apparent willingness to sign the CTBT. While bin Laden did discuss with Mahmood and Majid the possibility of making nuclear weapons, no further st eps appear to have been taken. There is also the clandestine nuclear cooperation with Iran initiated by Dr. Abd ul Qadeer Khan and his network which began sometime in the late 1980s and lasted until the mid 1990s. This was followed by similar sales to Libya that continued t ill 2003 and the exposure of the network, leading to a public confession by A.Q. Khan in January 2004. On 31 August 2009, Dr. Khan who had earlier admitted to s upplying centrifuges to Iran told a television interviewer in Karachi that if Ir an succeeds in acquiring nuclear technology, we will be a strong bloc in the regi on to counter international pressure. Iran s nuclear capability will neutralize Israel s power. According to the Washington Post, his assistance allowed Iran to l eapfrog over several major technological hurdles to make its own enriched uraniu m. In 2011, Dr. Khan made available documents that he says support his claim that h e personally transferred more than $3 million in payments by North Korea to seni or officers in the Pakistani military, who he claims subsequently approved his s haring of technical know-how and equipment with North Korean scientists . If the released letter is genuine, then this episode demonstrates a remarkable instanc e of corruption, not any ideological sympathy with godless North Korea. PAKISTAN-IRAN There were times when Iran was considered among Pakistans closest allies. It was the first country to recognize the newly independent Pakistan in 1947. In the 19 65 war with India, Pakistani fighter jets flew to Iranian bases in Zahidan and M ehrabad for protection and refueling. Irans Shah was a popular figure in Pakistan , both countries were members of the US-led SEATO and CENTO defence organization s in the mid-60s, and Iran opened wide its universities to Pakistani students. Al though it is 80% Sunni with only a 15-20% Shia minority, Pakistan nevertheless c onsidered Iran as a brother Muslim country. Farsi, Irans national language, had l ong been taught in Pakistani schools as a second language. 1979 was a turning point. Khomeneis Islamic revolution, and the Soviet invasion o f Afghanistan was to set in motion fundamental realignments in the region. Iran exited the US orbit, but Pakistan was setting out in a course that would bring i t far closer to the US than ever before. Pakistan and the US, with financial ass istance from Saudi Arabia, created the mujahideen that would challenge the Sovie ts and eventually force them to withdraw. With full backing from the US, General Zia-ul-Haq proceeded to create a hyper-religious fighting force and to drive Pa kistani society down the road of Islamization.

As religion assumed centrality in matters of the state in both Pakistan and Ira n, rifts appeared. These were to widen in later years: Pakistan supported the Pa shtun Taliban while Iran supported the Tajik Northern Alliance. The Taliban take over in 1996 was followed by the selective killing of Shias, including an Iranian diplomat. Soon there was a massacre of over 5000 Shias in Bamiyan province. Sub sequently Iran amassed 300,000 troops at the Afghan border and threatened to att ack the Pakistan-supported Taliban government unless Pakistan took measures to p rotect lives of Iranians in Afghanistan. Today Iran accuses Pakistan of harborin g terrorist anti-Iran groups on its soil and allowing Sunni extremists to ravage the Pakistans Shia minority. Farsi is no longer taught in Pakistani schools. On the nuclear front, Pakistan has always publicly defended Irans right to nuclea r technology. Further, as noted earlier, Pakistani secretly helped Irans nuclear weapon program until the mid 1990s. But even at that time, hidden still further b eneath the surface, voices within the Pakistani establishment spoke against givi ng nuclear support to Iran. This came both because of anti-Shiism as well as US p ressure. These suspicions were confirmed by confidential American cables revealed by Wiki leaks and highlighted by the Pakistani newspaper Dawn . The cables detail Pakist ans efforts to dissuade Iran from pursuing its weapons program. Gen Pervez Mushar raf, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri held at le ast seven meetings, whether face-to-face or by telephone, with the Iranians. The re were 11 meetings with the Americans in 2006 alone. Pakistani officials also s erved as interlocutors between Iran and the US. In a May 2006 cable about Gen Musharrafs meeting with Iranian First Vice Presiden t Parviz Davoodi it is reported that according to Kasuri, Musharraf told the visi tors that Iran should stop all efforts to enrich uranium now, adding that Tehran was making life difficult for its neighbour, Pakistan. Later that year, Mr Kasur i would tell the Americans that over the past three years he had made it his miss ion to persuade Tehran not to provoke a conflict over Irans nuclear program thus endangering regional and Pakistans domestic security. In an April 2006 meeting wit h US Senator Chuck Hagel, Mr Kasuri provided a list of other reasons why Pakista n was so keen to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. We are the only Musl im country [with such weapons], he said, and dont want anyone else to get it. Later that month, when the US announced its willingness to join the EU-3 in talk s with Iran, the American ambassador informed Mr Kasuri that the US expects Pakis tan to vigorously support the US action. FM Kasuri agreed, saying that he would ensure that the MFA issued a statement of support immediately. By 11pm that night a statement had been issued, and Mr Kasuri followed this up with a call to the Iranian foreign minister urging Iran to announce an immediate suspension of its e nrichment program in order to give dialogue a chance. This phone call was, again, promptly reported to the American ambassador, who commented that Kasuri may be w ildly worried that he has gone out on a limb by endorsing the Secretary [of Stat es] statement so vigorously. PAKISTAN-SAUDIA Former Saudi intelligence chief Prince Turki bin Sultan was on the mark when, sp eaking about Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, he said Its probably one of the closest re lationships in the world between any two countries. Indeed, Saudi Arabia and Paki stan have many commonalities both are Sunni, conservative, and have ruling oliga rchies which are dynastic and military respectively. They were the first to reco gnize and support the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. Their relationship to the U S has similarities too: both are American client states but their populations de eply resent this fact. Saudi Arabias footprint in Pakistan and its politics has grown steadily since the

early 1970s. A huge migration of Pakistani workers to newly rich Arab countries brought them into contact with a conservative brand of Islam that was different from the one they had grown up with at home. Many came back transformed. Some be came vigorous proselytizers, aided by generous grants for creating madrassas. Pa kistan has received more aid from Saudi Arabia than any country outside the Arab world since the 1960s. Major funding for Pakistans nuclear program came from Sau di Arabia; it is said that suitcases of cash were brought into Pakistan from Sau di Arabia (as well as Libya). In gratitude, Bhutto renamed the city of Lyallpur as Faisalabad (after King Faisal). The Pak-Saudi-US jihad in Afghanistan was to further cement Pak-Saudi relations. Madrassas belonging to the Wahabi-Salafi school of thought exploded in numbers and enrollment. Pakistani leaders, political and military, frequently traveled t o the Kingdom to pay homage. Their dependency on Saudi money grew. After India h ad tested its Bomb in May 1998 and Pakistan was mulling over the appropriate res ponse, Saudi Arabias promise of 50,000 barrels of free oil a day helped Pakistan decide in favor of testing its Bomb. Oil cushioned the impact of sanctions subse quently imposed by the US and Europe. The Saudi Defense Minister, Prince Sultan, was a VIP guest at Kahuta, where he toured its nuclear and missile facilities j ust before the tests. Years earlier the then serving prime minister of Pakistan, Benazir Bhutto, had been denied a similar privilege, The quid pro quo for the Kingdoms largesse has been for Pakistan to provide it so ldiers, airmen, and other military expertise. Saudi officers are trained at Paki stans national defence colleges and the Pakistan Air Force, with a high degree of professional training, helped create the Royal Saudi Air Force. Pakistani pilot s flew combat missions against South Yemen in the 1970s. Saudi Arabia is said to have purchased ballistic missiles produced in Pakistan. So what happens if Iran goes nuclear and Saudi Arabia wants to follow? How will it try to do it, and by what path? For all the wealth that it possesses, Saudi Arabia does not have the skilled tec hnical and scientific base necessary to create a nuclear infrastructure. It has many universities staffed largely by expatriates, and tens of thousands of Saudi students have been sent overseas to universities in the US and Europe. But beca use of an ideological attitude that is unsuited to the acquisition of modern sci entific skills, there has been little success in producing a significant number of accomplished Saudi engineers and scientists. Too weak to defend itself and to o rich to be left alone, the country has always been surrounded by those who eye its wealth. Perforce, Saudi Arabia will turn to Pakistan for nuclear help. This does not mea n outright transfer of NWs by Pakistan to Saudi Arabia. Surely this would certai nly lead to extreme reaction from the US and Europe, with no support offered by China or Russia. Even if a few weapons were smuggled out, Saudi Arabia could not claim to have them. Thus their ability to serve as a nuclear deterrent would be nullified. Instead, the Kingdoms route to nuclear weapons is likely to be gradual, beginning with the acquisition of nuclear reactors for electricity generation. The spent fuel from reactors can reprocessed for plutonium. Like Iran, it will have to fin d creative ways by which to skirt around the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty wh ich forbids reprocessing. However, it will doubtlessly take heart from the fact that the US forgave India for its nuclear testing in 1998 and eventually ended up rewarding it with a nuclear deal. Saudi Arabia had unwillingly signed on to the NPT in 1988. Its position then was that it would be happy to sign up but only if Israel did the same. That, of course, never happened. But Saudi Arabia had no o ption but to follow the US diktat.

The first step towards making nuclear weapons may soon be taken. In June 2011, S audi Arabia said it was planning to build 16 nuclear reactors over the next 20 y ears at a cost of more than $300 billion with each reactor costing around $7 bil lion. Arrangements were being made to offer the project for international biddin g and the winning company should satisfy the Kingdoms needs for modern technology. To create, run and maintain the resulting nuclear infrastructure will require im porting large numbers of technical workers. Some will be brought over from weste rn countries, as well as Russia and former Soviet Union countries. Engineering a nd scientific skills from Pakistan would be particularly desirable, especially s ince pure electricity production would not be the only goal. As Sunni Muslims, P akistanis would presumably be sympathetic with the Kingdoms larger goals. Having been in the business of producing NWs for nearly 30 years under difficult circum stances, they would also be familiar with supplier chains for various items that are normally hard to get. Since salaries in Saudi Arabia far exceed those in Pa kistan, one expects that many qualified persons would energetically seek to get leave from their parent institutions at the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission, K ahuta Research Laboratories, and National Development Complex. CONCLUSION As nuclear weapons become easier to make, existing conflicts are also finding a nuclear expression more easily. Irans present direction suggests that the histori cal clash between Sunni and Shia brands of Islam could move into the nuclear are na. What can be done to prevent this? Any solution is deeply complicated by the fact that the worlds pre-eminent power, the United States, lacks the moral authority to act effectively in this matter. Whereas it has periodically threatened Iran with a nuclear holocaust for trying to develop nuclear weapons, it has also rewarded to various degrees other count ries Israel, India, Pakistan, and North Korea that have developed such weapons s urreptitiously. That initial nuclear capability was provided to Iran by the US d uring the Shahs rule is also something that the world is not liable to forget. Iran must certainly be dissuaded by all peaceful means, including sanctions, fro m making a bomb. There is some evidence that current sanctions are having an eff ect. But nuclear nationalism and Persian pride could overwhelm economic consider ations. So, if Iran does make the bomb in spite of everything or gets close to i t then I feel that the world must accept this as just another nasty fact of life . Attacking Iran must be removed from the list of options. This rash step will u nleash dynamics over which the US and Israel will have little control. However u nwelcome Irans bomb may be and the Sunni Bomb that might follow it is far better to live with a potential danger than to knowingly create a holocaust. REFERENCES Bombshell Obama has run out of time to negotiate with Iran, New Republic, Henry So kolski and Greg Jones, 7 Dec 2010. Saudi king urged U.S. to attack Iran, WikiLeaks, Arshad Mohammed and Ross Colvin, http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/11/29/us-wikileaks-usa-idUSTRE6AP06Z20101129 A Saudi National Security Doctrine for the Next Decade, speech by Prince Turki AlFaisal, Royal Air Force Base, Molesworth, UK. Date: 8 June 2011. Obtained throug h private circulation. If I Am Assassinated, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, 1979. Brasseys Defence Yearbook 1995, page 276, Centre for Defence Studies, London.

Nuclear Program in Iran Tied To Pakistan - Complex Network Acquired Technology an d Blueprints, Washington Post, 21 Dec 2003. Pakistans nuclear-bomb maker says North Korea paid bribes for know-how, R. Jeffrey Smith, Washington Post, 6 July 2011 Musharraf govt pushed Iran to abandon N-weapons programme, Madiha Sattar, Dawn, 9 July 2011. 16 Saudi nuclear reactors to cost $300 billion, Arab News, 1 June 2011. Pervez Amirali Hoodbhoy is chair and professor in the department of physics at Q uaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad, Pakistan, where he has taught for 38 years. URL: http://www.newageislam.com/NewAgeIslamIslamTerrorismJihad_1.aspx?ArticleID= 5242

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COMMENTS 8/12/2011 10:47:14 PM satwa gunam I would not know why the bloggers and author wants to blame usa and Israel for e verything. Why cannot they blame the division and hatred in the muslim community .

8/12/2011 2:51:51 PM Ghulam Mohiyuddin American hostility to Iran seems to have been engineered by a Saudi-Israeli join t effort. The same Saudi-Israeli schemers may have been behind the American misa dventure in Iraq to topple Saddam and in the wild goose chase for the weapons of mass destruction.