Nuclear concerns abound

America’s longtime partner in the Global War on Terror is acting somewhat less like a partner these days.

This week, there were more reports, some of which were validated by the Defense Department, that Pakistani military units were firing on our U.S. aircraft near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. That doesn’t strike me as partnership.

Following a major political shakeup earlier this year and a new leadership element in Pakistan, there have been increased reasons for concern – as there has been for years. But with the recent suicide bombing of the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad and the scores of deaths and injuries in that attack, along with the firing on U.S. aircraft along the ill-defined border with Afghanistan, there is increased anxiety on the part of our national leadership. Just how stable is the new Pakistani administration, and are they able to cope with their internal and external security?

To me, the overall concern must be a nuclear concern. Pakistan has been a nuclear power for a decade. Their nuclear guru, A.Q. Khan, was responsible for the development of their nuclear arsenal. For some years now, he has been essentially under house arrest for passing nuclear secrets to such rogue nations as Libya, North Korea and Iran. But his legacy is haunting the world today, as North Korea and Iran continue with their development of nuclear weapons.

It is reported that the U.S. and Pakistan have a mutual agreement and fail-safe arrangement that the Pakistan nuclear arsenal could not be deployed unilaterally. With the understandable concern about the political stability within Pakistan, hopefully that is the case. I trust the past decade has also witnessed a means of restricting the passing of nuclear components and secrets from Pakistan to nations such as North Korea and Iran.

Within the past few weeks, we learned that North Korea has already reneged – one more time – to their agreement to cease and desist from nuclear ambitions in exchange for sorely needed fuel and food. They have within this week announced their intent to again start up their nuclear facility at Yongbyon. That comes just three months after they imploded their cooling tower at the facility in response to U.S. concessions. Just two days ago, they ousted the U.N. inspectors and stripped the U.N.-placed seals and cameras at the atomic facility. In North Korea, we are dealing with a rogue nation with a deranged and physically incapacitated leader – Kim Jong Il.

Speaking of deranged leaders, Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad comes to the United Nations with his derogatory spectacle and expects the world to believe him when he says they are building a nuclear capacity only for peaceful purposes, such as domestic energy production.

Of the three nations, Pakistan, North Korea and Iran, the latter poses the gravest concern to world peace. Here is a country with the capacity to develop a nuclear weapon within a very short time. It is also a country supporting terror and conflict with neighboring states, and most horribly, its president has called for the destruction of Israel as a nation.

As horrific as the international terrorist threat remains, it pales when considering the impact of one or more nuclear explosions anywhere in the world. The Free World cannot permit the development of nuclear weapons by either Iran or North Korea. Based on past history and their reluctance to be responsible nations in the world, as well as their trafficking with terrorist groups around the world, they simply cannot be trusted with nuclear weapons.

Nuclear non-proliferation is what the United Nations should be discussing in New York this week. It must be the priority concern along with international terrorism and the problems with the global economy.