Daily Times

According to ‘The Blind Eye’, the US has repeatedly practiced double standards on non-proliferation in South Asia by punishing India and Pakistan differently for the same offense, Defense analyst, professor and media personality Dr Syed Rifaat Hussain said. He made these comments while speaking at the book launch of ‘The Blind Eye: U.S. Non-Proliferation Policy Towards Pakistan’ by author Dr Rabia Akhtar held at Islamabad Club.

The book studies the United States non-proliferation policy towards Pakistan under five administrations – Ford, Carter, Reagan, Clinton and Bush and it concludes that U.S. failure to prevent Pakistan from achieving and testing its nuclear weapons capability was not a policy failure per se but an enforcement failure,” he continued.

Rabia’s superb account of flawed and failed US practice of such policies towards Pakistan leads her to conclude that the prevalent narrative of ‘betrayal has two sides to it’ and if both Islamabad and Washington recognize the “bitter truth”, they can avoid a complete rupture of their ties. Washington has used threats of war, coercion, economic sanctions, regime changes, multilateral statecraft and extended deterrence as instruments to contain the threat of horizontal nuclear proliferation. Three states – India, Pakistan and Israel – remain outside the framework of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), Dr Hussain added.

The book is significant for two reasons, one for its international history of nuclear weapons and the relations between Pakistan and the United States in the context of nuclear non-proliferation. It explains the issue very clearly, scrutinised with a ‘cool eye.’ Stanford University Professor Dr. David Halloway said.

The US and Pakistan have had a complex history with twists, turns and ambitions. However, the book should lay more emphasis on Pakistan’s perspective, he continued.

Published in Daily Times, November 8^th 2018.