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Support for Pakistan's desire to be offered a nuclear deal like the one the US proposed to India some time ago, has come from Stephen Cohen, a respected American expert on South Asia at the Brooking Institute in Washington and the author of the book "The Idea of Pakistan".
He told a Senate Homeland Security subcommittee the other day that the civilian nuclear programme deal the US offered India should have been based on criteria, instead of being country specific, and offered to states like Pakistan and Israel, who have not signed the non-proliferation treaty but have nuclear weapons.
He advocated establishing criteria for countries like Pakistan which should include "safe and secure nuclear programme, commitment to nuclear non-proliferation and arms control" - not any different from the NPT obligations.
From the non-proliferationist standpoint, this makes eminent sense. For it would require the recipients to open up their nuclear programmes for IAEA scrutiny and account for their activities. If Pakistan accepts these obligations, said Cohen, it would "certainty be eligible for a nuclear deal with the United States." And an additional reward would be the country's recognition as a 'legitimate' member of the nuclear club, which would be an extremely attractive proposition but for the changed circumstances.
The problem is that Pakistan's nuclear programme, like its defence policy in general, is India-centric. It wanted the programme when the US said it was going to give one to India. But now that the Congress-led government in New Delhi has abandoned the deal - at least for now - under threat of withdrawal of support from its left wing coalition partners and pressure from the nationalist BJP opposition - it would not be surprising if Islamabad too has lost its enthusiasm for the same.
Notably, the deal's opponents in India contend that since it requires stringent inspections by the IAEA to ensure that the country's civilian and nuclear programmes are effectively separated so that no material or technology used in one former is transferred to the other.
India insists - not without sound reasoning - that it would not allow any international control over its nuclear programme unless the so-called legitimate nuclear powers are willing to make "good faith efforts", as per their commitments to the NPT when it came into force in 1970, to eliminate nuclear weapons.
It may be recalled that when the Bush administration rejected Pakistan's demand for a similar civilian nuclear programme like India's, Islamabad had said it would ask its old friend China for help. Cohen observed that China is already assisting Pakistan with its nuclear programme though, he said, such assistance did not "quite legitmise" the Pakistani programme.
Considering that Pakistan's nuclear programme is a product of its India centric defence policy, such a quest for legitimacy may not be that compelling. Nonetheless, this country neither has a policy nor the potential to match India's big power ambitions. Considering that our declared policy is to have a minimum credible deterrence, Washington's criteria-based offer, if at all it comes, should be welcomed.