My last two days have been spent reading a scary book, Deception: Pakistan, the United States and the Global Nuclear Weapons Conspiracy, by Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clark, two renowned British investigative journalists. A friend who recommended it to me said, “If you want to know what might happen if things go out of control in Pakistan, buy this just-released book.”

To know why it’s scary, read this: “With the White House and 10 Downing Street unable to countenance an alternative, Musharraf’s Pakistan remains at the epicentre of terror. It will only be a matter of time before the rising tide of Sunni extremism and the fast-flowing current of nuclear exports find common cause and realise their apocalyptic intent. There are plenty of ideologues, thinkers and Islamic strategists who are working towards precisely that goal.”

The book ends on a chilling note, by quoting Robert Gallucci, former adviser to President George W. Bush on weapons of mass destruction (WMD): “Pakistan is the number one threat to the world at this moment in time. If it all goes off, a nuclear bomb in a US or European city, I’m sure we will find ourselves looking in Pakistan’s direction.”

This may sound alarmist, especially in view of Bush administration’s earlier baseless claims about Saddam Hussein’s “bomb-in-the-basement”, a pretext it used for invading Iraq in 2003. However, the frightening scenario that Levy and Scott-Clark have sketched is different for several important reasons. Firstly, there is voluminous evidence of a flourishing nuclear black market in Pakistan that was being run by A.Q. Khan, the disgraced “father of the Islamic Bomb”.

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