Abdul Qadeer Khan, better known as the self-proclaimed father of Pakistan's nuclear programme, publicly admitted leaking secrets to Iran, Libya and North Korea. The news itself was neither new nor dramatic for professionals who track clandestine nuclear technology transfers. They have long since concluded that Pakistan is at the hub of an intricate global network of providing such know-how.
What is a departure is the manner in which the regime of President Pervez Musharraf has aggressively pursued Dr Khan - a national hero - and brought him to book. It is also significant that Pakistan's military, normally very secretive about such matters, has provided a wealth of information to the local media about Dr Khan's many transgressions. However, the information being circulated is merely the tip of a murky iceberg with international ramifications. It seems that many more embarrassing disclosures may await us.
Pakistan, which (along with India) became a declared nuclear power in May 1998, acquired its own technology through clandestine means and began its programme in 1972. Dr Khan, then a nuclear scientist working in the Netherlands, offered his services to prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. Given carte blanche and generous funding, he set up an intricate cluster of secret contacts and suppliers in Europe that allowed Pakistan to obtain the required technology for uranium enrichment.
Subsequently, the Pakistan military, under General Zia ul-Haque (who deposed Bhutto and marched him to the gallows) deified Dr Khan and encouraged his furtive efforts to acquire the nuclear bomb - a capability that acquired religious overtones, with Saudi Arabia and other 'friendly' Islamic states providing funding.
By 1986, the rudimentary Pakistan bomb was a reality, occasionally being referred to as the 'Islamic bomb'. Due to the Soviet presence in Afghanistan, the international community, led by the US, turned a blind eye to this covert proliferation - but the tell-tale signs became more explicit and in 1990, America invoked the Pressler amendment that more or less gave Pakistan's bomb a de facto status.
Then, Pakistan's army chief, General Mirza Aslam Beg made a case for Islamic nations pooling their resources in a show of 'strategic defiance' against what was perceived as US hegemonism, and the possibility of a Pakistan-Iran axis was mooted. Most analysts dismissed the idea since it was believed that a Sunni-dominated Pakistan would not actively allow an Ayatollah-led Shi'ite Iran to become nuclear.
However, anxieties persisted and in the nuclear trade it was averred that Pakistan had entered the nuclear suppliers loop - a fact that was not unknown to the US, Russia and China. Following September 11, global concerns about weapons of mass destruction and the possibility that nuclear know-how would be acquired by non-state players, there has been a concerted attempt to monitor the supply of nuclear technology.