Taking fingers off the nuclear button

In Pakistan, there is no such thing as 'finger on the nuclear button'. So it is no big deal that President Zardari has surrendered the chairmanship of the Nuclear Command Authority (NCA) to Prime Minister Gilani. With an elaborate nuclear doctrine and a fully functional implementation mechanism in place, the presidential move is, at best, symbolic in nature, in that state power has started flowing in the direction of the prime minister.
Unlike the presidential system, like in the United States where the president has his finger on the nuclear button, in parliamentary democracies, the governments define their nuclear doctrines and enforce them through the prime minister that essentially means the prime minister plus the cabinet. No wonder, some time back when President Zardari offered India a 'no-first use' proposal, quite a few eyebrows were raised in Pakistan.
Since the proposal cuts right across the heart of the time-honoured concept of nuclear deterrence, the perception took hold that President Zardari, perhaps, lacks depth in understanding of matters nuclear. However, there is no dearth of people here who insist that President Zardari's decision to hand over the NCA chair to the prime minister is in line with his politics of producing deceptive mirages to keep his detractors' patience, with his promises to give up his 58 (2)B powers, from coming to the boil.
They say he hasn't surrendered anything he had. On course the president, by virtue of his office, is the chairman of the NCA, the apex body. But how the nuclear programme, both peaceful and military, is to be actualised falls in the realm of the armed forces. It is basically the Strategic Plans Division (SPD) that conceives various policy options for approval by the NCA and then takes over for implementation.
But the most important task, involving custody and delivery of nuclear weapons, and training and deployment is undertaken by the strategic force. A three-star general heads this force comprising some 10,000 men. Therefore, if there is speculation that the shift in command has materialised to strengthen its security, it is not correct.
In fact, there is a bit of history to this development also. Just a few months before General Musharraf took over in 1999, the then prime minister Nawaz Sharif had questioned the proposal of making the president, who is also supreme commander of the armed forces, the chairman of the proposed Nuclear Command Authority, and, perhaps earned the ire of the then military top brass.
So when COAS General Musharraf became president, the position of heading the said body inevitably fell in his lap. Now that the environment for a fully functional parliamentary democracy is being evolved, it is only fair that the overall incharge of Pakistan's nuclear programme should be the elected government, headed by an elected prime minister.
As the circumstances would have it, the ordinance that created the NCA was due for expiration by the end of November, unless re-promulgated - which was done with an amendment, under which, the hat has been passed on to the prime minister.
Such an amendment was also on the table of the National Assembly, not by the ruling coalition, but by the PML (N) members. But it would be futile to attribute this change to any external pressure that does not seem to be relenting do what you may, for that is essentially geared at divesting Pakistan of its nuclear capability.