Amid the surge of news coverage surrounding Iran’s nuclear program, one key fact is often overlooked: to this day, no Muslim-majority country officially holds nuclear weapons status—except Pakistan. Even more striking, the United States was aware of the program from its early stages, yet chose to remain silent.
Pakistan officially became a nuclear-armed state in May 1998 after conducting six nuclear tests in the Chagai mountains, making it the seventh country in the world to publicly test nuclear weapons. Today, Pakistan is estimated to possess around 170 nuclear warheads, ranking it as the seventh-largest nuclear power globally.
Born from Defeat and Fear
Pakistan’s nuclear ambition did not emerge from arrogance, but from trauma. Its defeat in the 1971 war against India, which resulted in the secession of East Pakistan and the creation of Bangladesh, left a deep national scar.
Three years later, the situation worsened when India conducted its first nuclear test in Pokhran in May 1974, describing it as a “peaceful nuclear explosion.”
Pakistan’s Prime Minister at the time, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, responded forcefully: “We will eat grass or leaves, even go hungry, but we will get one of our own.” Bhutto then quietly launched Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program under the codename Project-706.
In fact, Pakistan had already pursued a civilian nuclear program since the 1950s, supported by U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower’s “Atoms for Peace” initiative.
The Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission was established in 1956, its first research reactor became operational in 1965, and its first nuclear power plant began operations in 1971 with assistance from Canada. However, after 1972, the direction of the program shifted dramatically toward weapons development.
The Scientist Who Took Europe’s Blueprints
The central figure behind Pakistan’s nuclear program was Abdul Qadeer Khan, a metallurgist who worked in the Netherlands in the early 1970s for a contractor linked to URENCO, a European consortium developing uranium enrichment technology.
During his time there, Khan gained access to classified centrifuge designs—machines used to spin uranium at extremely high speeds to separate the isotopes required for nuclear weapons. Dutch investigations later revealed that Khan had secretly copied these sensitive blueprints, along with supplier lists.
In 1975, he returned to Pakistan carrying this knowledge and helped establish a uranium enrichment facility in Kahuta, near Islamabad, later named the Khan Research Laboratories. By the early 1980s, the facility was already capable of producing highly enriched uranium.
According to the Congressional Research Service, Pakistan’s production capacity had been sufficient to build one nuclear bomb per year since 1987. A CIA report in 1991 stated that Pakistan had possessed a viable nuclear weapon design since the late 1980s.
China also played a significant role. Beijing provided nuclear materials and expertise, contributed to the construction of plutonium production reactors, and supplied thousands of ring magnets for Pakistan’s uranium enrichment program in the 1990s.
Washington Knew, but Chose Silence
Declassified U.S. documents published by the National Security Archive at George Washington University reveal that American officials had already detected signs of Pakistan’s covert uranium enrichment program as early as the late 1970s.
An internal U.S. State Department document dated January 1979 warned that Pakistan was “moving more rapidly toward acquisition of nuclear capability than we had earlier estimated.”
However, in December 1979, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, and Pakistan instantly became a pivotal country in U.S. foreign policy. Washington needed Islamabad as a frontline state to support the Mujahideen fighters against Soviet forces, and billions of dollars in economic aid began flowing into Pakistan.
A State Department telegram from that period described the situation as an “acute dilemma.” Washington sought to prevent nuclear proliferation, yet also depended on Pakistan to counter Soviet influence in Afghanistan. Throughout the 1980s, Pakistan’s nuclear program was closely monitored but ultimately tolerated.
The Symington Amendment, which required the suspension of aid to countries pursuing unsafeguarded nuclear enrichment, was frequently overlooked. Under President Ronald Reagan, U.S. assistance to Pakistan actually increased significantly.
Sanctions were only imposed in 1990, after the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, when Pakistan was no longer central to U.S. strategic interests—but by then, it was already too late.
A Shadow Network Spanning Three Countries
The most surprising chapter emerged after the 1998 nuclear tests. Investigations by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) revealed that A.Q. Khan had operated a transcontinental nuclear black market network, secretly selling nuclear technology and centrifuge designs to Iran, North Korea, and Libya.
This network functioned with remarkable coordination: component factories in Malaysia, shipments routed through Dubai, and intermediaries moving money and equipment across multiple regions. It was ultimately exposed in 2003 when a ship named BBC China, carrying centrifuge components bound for Libya, was intercepted.
Khan later admitted to running the proliferation network, but the Pakistani government swiftly granted him a pardon. In Pakistan, he continues to be revered as a national hero.
Today, as the United States firmly insists that Iran must not acquire nuclear weapons, the historical record suggests that Washington’s nonproliferation policy has not always been consistent. When Pakistan built its bomb, the U.S. chose strategic interests over principle—and that reality makes today’s debate over Iran impossible to separate from the precedent set by Pakistan.
