Not So Secret Pakistan

So, are we going to invade Pakistan now? "We cannot have the Pakistani bomb fall into Islamist hands"? Really? In whose hands do you think that it has always been? Politicians are not even allowed the nuclear codes. The generals keep those to themselves. With the generals comes the ISI. And with the ISI comes a veritable cornucopia of Islamist factions. But none of them wants to bomb Britain. Unless we give them some cause. Let's not.

The "Taliban" have no existence apart from the Pashtun in general, who are old Indian allies. "Al-Qaeda" does not exist at all. But as for the ISI's backing of "Islamist militant groups" or what have you, sooner rather than later, and at least arguably already, what else will Pakistan have? What else will remain of her founding dream of a distinct Muslim nation on the Subcontinent, acting as such? Especially if she is to be sandwiched between India and the restored, Indian-backed "Taliban".

No wonder that the "Taliban" are open to this. The scholars at Deoband strongly rejected Jinnah's two nation theory. So did plenty of other people: just as there have always been more Irish Catholics in the remaining United Kingdom than the entire population of the 26 Irish counties that seceded, so there have always been more Muslims in India than the entire population of Pakistan. And they were right.

I am not happy with a nuclear-armed anywhere. Nuclear weapons are immoral in and of themselves. But despite both that and all of the above, I would or do find a nuclear-armed Pakistan, or a nuclear-armed China, or a nuclear-armed North Korea, or the nuclear-armed Iran that does not exist and which no one is trying to bring into existence, at most no more worrying than nuclear weapons in the hands of the BJP and of those who come with it. Or nuclear weapons in the hands of Likud and of its jaw-dropping coalition partners, Shas and Yisrael Beiteinu, the leader of which latter is the Foreign Minister. Or nuclear weapons in the hands of anyone who is or who venerates Tony Blair, George W Bush, either of the Clintons, or Nicolas Sarkozy.