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$100 billion for Pakistan to abolish nuclear weapons?
By Masood Haider
Wednesday, 17 Dec, 2008 | 03:16 AM PST |
NEW YORK: The United States and other Western donors should agree to a $100 billion economic package for Pakistan provided it ‘verifiably eliminates its entire nuclear stockpile and industrial base that sustains it,’ proposes a opinion piece published in the Wall Street Journal Tuesday.
The writer, Bret Stephens,had interviewed President Asif Zardari during his recent visit to the United Nations where Mr Zardari made repeated appeals for financial aid from the international community. Stephens suggests that a $100 billion should be ‘administered by an independent authority and disbursed over 10 years, on condition that Pakistan remain a democratic and secular state (no military rulers; no Sharia law).’
It would supplement that package with military aid similar to what the US provides Israel: F-35 fighters, M-1 tanks, Apache helicopters. The US would also extend its nuclear umbrella to Pakistan, just as Hillary Clinton now proposes to do for Israel.
The Wall Street Journal, a conservative business newspaper, is generally considered to echo the thinking of a powerful segment of think tanks and opinion makers in the United States.
Stephens posits that such an undertaking by the next Obama administration could work, pointing out that ‘people forget that the world has subtracted more nuclear powers over the past two decades than it has added: Kazakhstan, Belarus, Ukraine and South Africa all voluntarily relinquished their stockpiles in the 1990s. Libya did away with its program in 2003 when Moammar Gadhafi concluded that a bomb would be a net liability, and that he had more to gain by coming to terms with the West.’
‘There's no compelling reason Mr. Zardari and his military brass shouldn't reach the same conclusion, assuming excellent terms and desperate circumstances. Sure, a large segment of Pakistanis will never agree. Others, who have subsisted on a diet of leaves and grass so Pakistan could have its bomb, might take a more pragmatic view’, he says.
In Stephens view ‘Preventing the disintegration of Pakistan, perhaps in the wake of a war with India (how much restraint will New Delhi show after the next Mumbai-style atrocity?), will be the Obama administration's most urgent foreign-policy challenge. Since Mr. Obama has already committed a trillion or so in new domestic spending, what's $100 billion in the cause of saving the world?’
‘The tragedy of Pakistan is that it remains a country that can't do the basics, like make a bicycle chain. If what its leaders want is prestige, prosperity and lasting security, they could start by creating an economy that can make one — while unlearning how to make the bomb,’ he asserts.
http://www.dawn.net/wps/wcm/connect...n-for-pakistan-to-abolish-nuclear-weapons-szh
these assholes are desperates for our nukes
By Masood Haider
Wednesday, 17 Dec, 2008 | 03:16 AM PST |
NEW YORK: The United States and other Western donors should agree to a $100 billion economic package for Pakistan provided it ‘verifiably eliminates its entire nuclear stockpile and industrial base that sustains it,’ proposes a opinion piece published in the Wall Street Journal Tuesday.
The writer, Bret Stephens,had interviewed President Asif Zardari during his recent visit to the United Nations where Mr Zardari made repeated appeals for financial aid from the international community. Stephens suggests that a $100 billion should be ‘administered by an independent authority and disbursed over 10 years, on condition that Pakistan remain a democratic and secular state (no military rulers; no Sharia law).’
It would supplement that package with military aid similar to what the US provides Israel: F-35 fighters, M-1 tanks, Apache helicopters. The US would also extend its nuclear umbrella to Pakistan, just as Hillary Clinton now proposes to do for Israel.
The Wall Street Journal, a conservative business newspaper, is generally considered to echo the thinking of a powerful segment of think tanks and opinion makers in the United States.
Stephens posits that such an undertaking by the next Obama administration could work, pointing out that ‘people forget that the world has subtracted more nuclear powers over the past two decades than it has added: Kazakhstan, Belarus, Ukraine and South Africa all voluntarily relinquished their stockpiles in the 1990s. Libya did away with its program in 2003 when Moammar Gadhafi concluded that a bomb would be a net liability, and that he had more to gain by coming to terms with the West.’
‘There's no compelling reason Mr. Zardari and his military brass shouldn't reach the same conclusion, assuming excellent terms and desperate circumstances. Sure, a large segment of Pakistanis will never agree. Others, who have subsisted on a diet of leaves and grass so Pakistan could have its bomb, might take a more pragmatic view’, he says.
In Stephens view ‘Preventing the disintegration of Pakistan, perhaps in the wake of a war with India (how much restraint will New Delhi show after the next Mumbai-style atrocity?), will be the Obama administration's most urgent foreign-policy challenge. Since Mr. Obama has already committed a trillion or so in new domestic spending, what's $100 billion in the cause of saving the world?’
‘The tragedy of Pakistan is that it remains a country that can't do the basics, like make a bicycle chain. If what its leaders want is prestige, prosperity and lasting security, they could start by creating an economy that can make one — while unlearning how to make the bomb,’ he asserts.
http://www.dawn.net/wps/wcm/connect...n-for-pakistan-to-abolish-nuclear-weapons-szh
these assholes are desperates for our nukes
