PROLIFERATING THE BOMB WITH APLOMB

The Economist reviews The Nuclear Jihadist

"The book's most revealing passages are about America's role in the affair. The authors argue that successive American administrations knew a lot about Mr Khan's activities, but for larger strategic foreign-policy reasons, chose to do nothing about them. Mr Khan was able to flout international rules on nuclear non-proliferation because American policymakers thought that securing Pakistan's assistance in defeating the Soviet Union in Afghanistan—and, more recently, President Pervez Musharraf's help in fighting terrorism—were more important than limiting the spread of nuclear bombs.

The story of Richard Barlow, a CIA agent who once worked in its directorate of intelligence on proliferation, sums up the American attitude. Mr Barlow had protested that intelligence was being manipulated by the Pentagon to suit the policy adopted by President Bush senior's administration of turning a blind eye to Pakistan's nuclear development. He lost his job. The authors find Mr Barlow at the end of the book denied his state pension, living with two dogs in a motor home."

And this man still enjoys a hero's existence in Pakistan. I wish hypocrisy everywhere were at least more subtle.