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Comment by newyankee | Hacker News Reader

The entire existence of Pakistan depends on being a strong Islamic entity in South Asia and selling their Nuclear Weapons as being the defender of Islamic Ummah. It is a different issue that all these factors have been exploited by the all powerful Army , extremists and other vocal actors leaving very less modern, practical voices in the country.

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To whom exactly did Pakistan export nuclear weapons tech again?

Edit: They sold centrifuges to North Korea. Which is not an islamic country as far as I know...

Allegedly North Korea, Saudi Arabia and Iran.

I am reasonably certain it is the opposite. Saudi Arabia funded Pakistani science to make sure they developed nuclear weapons.

Saudi Arabia has no need to develop nuclear weapons or posses them as a result. They can just ask Pakistan for them at a moments notice if they actually need to.

Sure, think of it as buying call options instead of shares from the Saudis POV.

Pakistan is selling nuclear weapons? Can you provide any support for this claim?

* was selling. This isn't happening anymore

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdul_Qadeer_Khan#Proliferatio...

That is far from selling actual warheads, isn't it? And the history of nuclear prolifiration is long and complicated.

yep! pretty much, but selling the supply chain and specs themselves is almost as bad. It took PK almost 30 years with PRC information transfer to build the Islamic bomb, but 10 for NK thanks to Khan Labs.

And how many new nuclear powers are there since North Korea? I can not think of any.

Libya and Syria both contracted with Khan Labs before the whistle was blown in 2003.

Iran is almost one.

Neither Libya nor Syria have them, do they? And Iran was close, but the treaty (the one the last US admin tore appart) stopped them for the time being.

Libya does not due to sanctions and diplomacy in 2003 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disarmament_of_Libya

Syria does not due to Israeli airstrikes in 2007 and sanctions until the Civil War began - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Outside_the_Box

Iran has started building again - https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/01/world/middleeast/iran-mis...

None of what you are saying even contravenes my larger point though

>> selling their Nuclear Weapons as being the defender of Islamic Ummah

They are selling the idea that their nuclear weapons are the defender…

Which is not wrong actually. Pakistan could have been the next US war if PK didn't have Nuclear.

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