Pakistan: The Ally From Hell

From the press office at The Atlantic:

WASHINGTON, D.C., November 4, 2011 -- An exclusive report on Pakistan, featured in the upcoming issues of The Atlantic and National Journal, paints a chilling picture of a U.S. ally even more treacherous than previously known. While it's no secret Pakistan is home to radical jihadists and a large nuclear arsenal, The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg and National Journal's Marc Ambinder reveal troubling new information about the extreme lengths the country is taking to hide its nuclear weapons from the U.S.—and about the secret plans the U.S. military has made to seize those weapons in the event of a crisis. Goldberg and Ambinder also provide fresh insight into the deeply strained U.S.-Pakistan relationship, one in which the two countries are more adversaries than allies.

This combined Atlantic/National Journal reporting effort, the product of dozens of interviews over the course of six months, marks the first time the two publications have collaborated on joint cover stories.

The Atlantic's report is available free online: "The Ally From Hell":

Much of the world, of course, is anxious about the security of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons, and for good reason: Pakistan is an unstable and violent country located at the epicenter of global jihadism, and it has been the foremost supplier of nuclear technology to such rogue states as Iran and North Korea. It is perfectly sensible to believe that Pakistan might not be the safest place on Earth to warehouse 100 or more nuclear weapons. These weapons are stored on bases and in facilities spread across the country (possibly including one within several miles of Abbottabad, a city that, in addition to having hosted Osama bin Laden, is home to many partisans of the jihadist group Harakat-ul-Mujahideen). Western leaders have stated that a paramount goal of their counterterrorism efforts is to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of jihadists.

“The single biggest threat to U.S. security, both short-term, medium-term, and long-term, would be the possibility of a terrorist organization obtaining a nuclear weapon,” President Obama said last year at an international nuclear-security meeting in Washington. Al-Qaeda, Obama said, is “trying to secure a nuclear weapon—a weapon of mass destruction that they have no compunction at using.”

Pakistan would be an obvious place for a jihadist organization to seek a nuclear weapon or fissile material: it is the only Muslim-majority state, out of the 50 or so in the world, to have successfully developed nuclear weapons; its central government is of limited competence and has serious trouble projecting its authority into many corners of its territory (on occasion it has difficulty maintaining order even in the country’s largest city, Karachi); Pakistan’s military and security services are infiltrated by an unknown number of jihadist sympathizers; and many jihadist organizations are headquartered there already.

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National Journal's report is by subscription only.