PAKISTAN once again in the global spotlight. This time, as an unexpected mediator between the United States and Iran in pursuit of a lasting ceasefire and an end to the war in the Middle East.
The glaring irony is that Pakistan’s own nuclear ambitions once stunned India and upset the world’s apple cart. Beginning in the late 1970s, under the leadership of nuclear scientist AQ Khan, Pakistan, then a close U.S. ally, pursued a covert uranium enrichment programme that culminated in the late 1990s with the unveiling of the so-called “Islamic bomb.”
That’s exactly how Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto framed his country’s nuclear ambitions before he was ousted, tried and executed by his Chief of Army Staff, General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq in April 1979.
That same month, Ayatollah Khomeini declared an end to the monarchy of Shah Reza Pahlavi and the official establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The seizure of the American embassy later that year resulted in a 444-day hostage crisis that set Iran on a collision course with the United States.
Also in 1979, the former Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, and a ragtag army of Mujahideen, with generous military and financial support from the United States, some $3billion worth of arms and equipment over a period of about ten years, and coordinated by General Zia in Islamabad, meant the Soviet army would bleed money and resources in Afghanistan without ever scoring a knock-out blow.
Using the war next door, a war that it continues to fight with Afghanistan, General Zia doubled down on his country’s nuclear ambitions, and almost ten years after he would die in a mysterious plane crash, Pakistan tested its nuclear weapons with six underground explosions in the Ras Koh Hills of the Chagai district in Balochistan.
Decades later, Islamabad finds itself brokering an attempt to end Iran’s nuclear dreams. It’s impossible to ignore the irony. Beyond the game of cricket, Pakistan rarely ever comes up in public conversations among Guyanese. Although much of what happens in Pakistan, a country with a population of nearly 200 million, has little to no impact on our daily lives, it’s nevertheless a country with vast economic potential and strategic leverage. I am not even sure Guyanese are aware that Pakistan’s most beloved of sons, and perhaps one of the greatest cricketers of all time, Imran Khan, continues to be illegally imprisoned to the point that he is beginning to lose his sight.
My first visit as a journalist to Pakistan in December 1993 clashed with the nuclear ambitions of Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, the daughter of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the PM who was executed by Gen. Zia. Bhutto herself would be assassinated in 2007 by Islamic militants determined to prevent her from returning to office. Bhutto was an astute and razor-sharp politician whom I was fortunate to have interviewed for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) while she was visiting relatives in Toronto and dreaming of returning to office.
I recall making small talk as our cameras were setting up about our experience trying to obtain Pakistani visas in 1993 and being flatly rejected. I asked her whether it had anything to do with rumours that Pakistan was on the brink of testing a nuclear weapon, and her government would have preferred not to answer questions from pesky foreign journalists. She smiled and feigned ignorance.
Our team eventually entered Pakistan over the Khyber Pass from Afghanistan, legally obtaining our visas from a makeshift shed on the outskirts of the bustling city of Peshawar, perfectly timed as the sun was setting.
Strangely, our interests had nothing to do with nuclear weapons. We were trying to piece together the reasons Arab veterans of the Afghan jihad against the Soviet Union had put a massive truck bomb in the basement of the World Trade Centre in February 1993. That devastating explosion turned out to be a dress rehearsal for the attacks of 9/11.
And now all eyes are on Islamabad in April 2026. This is where negotiations are taking place to bring about a permanent end to Iran’s nuclear ambition. Remember, President Donald Trump said he was launching Operation Epic Fury to make sure Iran “can never have a nuclear weapon.” It is the one consistent point in the back and forth between Tel Aviv’s objectives for this war and those of the Trump administration.
Iran has always insisted that it is not seeking to build a nuclear bomb, a claim that is viewed with enormous scepticism. On the one hand, Iran is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Israel, on the other hand, is one of the only countries with nuclear weapons that has not signed the treaty.
Missing from all the talk on international network news channels is an explanation of Iran’s administrative structure. From 1979, Iran’s governance is based on what the country calls “Wilayatul-Faqih”, which means the “Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist.” The most senior jurist until his decapitation a few weeks ago was Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. In Shia Islam, Khamenei was regarded as a marja’, the highest level of religious authority. His word is the gospel, as we would say. His fatwa, or religious edict, for 25 years, was that nuclear weapons are strictly forbidden (haram) in Islam.
DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Guyana National Newspapers Limited.
