“A dream of nightmare proportions” The ‘Islamic bomb’ and the ‘Khan Affair’, January 1979 to December 1979

Abstract

This chapter examines in detail the public and private impact of the ‘Islamic bomb’ as an emergent issue in 1979, demonstrating that while there was a media outcry surrounding perceived proliferation throughout the Muslim world, such concerns did not have the same impact on policymakers. In government, understandings were subtler than those of the media and peripheral political figures. Senior politicians, civil servants, and diplomats recognised that faith was a cloak concealing nationalistic imperatives. They correctly assessed that Pakistan had an economic and political stake in portraying itself as the custodian of Muslim nuclear power, but found no evidence to suggest plans for wider, pan-Islamic proliferation. Media coverage of an Islamic bomb transformed public perceptions of Pakistan’s nuclear ambitions from a regional, South Asian matter to a multiregional problem affecting the Middle East and beyond. Although policymakers assessed that proliferation because of faith was not especially likely, the public perception of a potential Islamic nuclear capability needed to be combated. Representing a collision of culture, geopolitics, and international security, the mere mention of an Islamic bomb required a response in the febrile, fragile atmosphere of the late 1970s.