Just curious, Dan: do you believe this? Do you really think this was a serious investigation and the Pakistani government is shocked to learn of this?

You can tell from my tone that I don't believe a word of it, but you're the foreign policy expert around here. Do you believe it?

Ditto Kevin above:
It seems that the government found a convenient fall guy to put the blame on. This whole idea of "signing a confession" sounds suspicious.

I think there are too many loose ends that are conveniently tied up by this development. The whole issue of Pakistani nuclear technology proliferation certainly involved significant portions of the intelligence services and military of the country.

To have one person take responsibility for the entire issue is farcical, particularly as the result of an "investigation" conducted by a military dictatorship, where there is no transparency at all.

Either there was some serious coercion going on (i.e. torture), or Mr. Khan was happy to oblige the government in some artful misdirection.

Bush's intervention in Afganistan and Iraq is the main reason why they even bothered to confess. It sure wasn't the diplomats that they sent over there!

I think we see only through a glass darkly what is going on with Pakistani politics. Many of the programs Pakistan had underway in defense and foreign policy, including the atomic weapons program and support for the Taliban, were underway before Musharraf came to power. He surely knew something about them, even if he did not know everything. His coup could not have succeeded if he did not have support from within the Army, yet clearly some parts of the military and ISI were pursuing policies independent of the last government. This may have continued under his.

At any rate, I doubt someone with Khan's reputation in Pakistan could be made to be a fall guy. At the same time I doubt Bush administration pressure was the only thing prompting Musharraf's government to act. Musharraf is bound to think some of the people who wanted to share Pakistan's atomic secrets with Iran and North Korea share goals with the people who want him dead, and this may be the major reason his people forced a confession out of Khan.

Obviously this is all speculation. We really don't know much at all about why people are doing what they are in Pakistan right now.

remember, there's indo-pak peacetalks scheduled in a couple weeks...

also, the atimes reports that:

Islamabad has appreciated for some time that, given the latest events involving its scientists, it would come under strong international pressure to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and open up its facilities to international safeguards and inspections. Neither Pakistan nor nuclear neighbor India have signed the NPT. And worse, there is a strong belief in the corridors of power in Pakistan and the KRL that the US will attempt to force Islamabad to abandon its nuclear program altogether.

Consequently, Pakistani authorities have devised a strategy under which they will urge the US to back off their nuclear facilities, in exchange for help in extracting the US from the imbroglio in which it finds itself in neighboring Afghanistan.

Developments in Afghanistan strengthen the Pakistan hand. From March this year, as the winter thaw begins, more than ever since September 11, after which Pakistan pledged allegiance to the US in the "war on terror", the US needs Pakistan's help for the safety of the 12,000 international troops in Afghanistan.

Intelligence reports confirm that once the ice has melted, the Afghan resistance, comprising al-Qaeda, the Hizb-i-Islami Afghanistan of Gulbuddin Hekmatyr and the Islamic Movement of Taliban, will invite local tribes on both sides of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border to help expel foreign troops and retake major cities lost by the Taliban in late 2001.

The tribal aspect of this plan has alarmed Western security officials as US-led forces rely on sections of their support to conduct operations in Afghanistan. Strategists in Islamabad told Asia Times Online that Pakistan would now offer to mediate by soliciting the Taliban - which Pakistan originally helped bring to power in 1996 - to join in a national government and end their resistance.

If this works, the US will get a much-desired exit strategy from Afghanistan, and Islamabad will get to keep its nuclear program intact.

Today's Washington Post reports that General Musharraf himself has been fingered by A Q Khan. Others include former Army chiefs Gen Beg and Gen Karamat.

Of course the Pakistani military spokesman has denied that Gen Musharraf was involved...but if the C-130 was spotted in Pyongyang in 2002 (after he signed up for the War on Terror) how seriously do you think we can take the denials.

I guess Bush had it wrong.

Clearly, Pakistan has been the Axle of Evil.