Four decades after the term was coined by security and strategic experts, the Islamic Bomb has become a real threat to the world, according to larry Pressler, a leading US strategic expert.
“The threat of an ‘Islamic bomb’ was and is a real threat to the security of the Asian subcontinent and the world,” said Pressler on Friday while announcing the release of his upcoming book Neighbours in Arms: The American Presence in the Nuclear Subcontinent, to be published by Penguin Random House India.
Senator larry Pressler, a former Harvard University professor, is no stranger to India. He is the author of the famous ‘Pressler Amendment’, the 1990 law which literally cut off the US military aid to Pakistan.
With the Pressler Amendment, it became mandatory for the US President to certify on an annual basis that Pakistan does not possess a nuclear explosive device and the proposed US assistance programme would reduce significantly the risk of Pakistan possessing a nuclear explosive device.
The Amendment is being seen as the brain child of Pressler who was the chairman of the Arms Control Sub Committee of the US Senate.
The law was enacted following the incapability of the then US President George H Bush in certifying whether Pakistan was a nuclear weapon state or not. Pakistan conducted a series of nuclear tests in 1998 openly declaring to the world that it was a nuclear power.
“I'm looking forward to sharing my personal opinion and historical perspective on the US-India nuclear deal, the relationship between the two countries, the history of the Pressler Amendment, and my past attempts to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of Pakistan. As I said then and I say now, the threat of an ‘Islamic bomb’ was and is a real threat to the security of the Asian subcontinent and the world,” Pressler said in the release.
From the words of Pressler it is clear that the US views India as a responsible nuclear power even as Pakistan is stockpiling nuclear weapons as well as helping countries like Saudi Arabia and libya in acquiring the ‘bomb’.
The book is expected to hit the shelves by November 2017. Pressler reminiscences that he was rated as a hero (though temporarily) throughout India while the Pakistanis described him as a villain.
According to PRH, the book is an account of ‘the evolution of the US-India relationship over the last thirty years, under the shadow of the massive military-industrial complex that controls purse-strings in Washington, the extent of control exercised by lobbyists in Washington and India today, and
recommendations for a new US-India alliance that could serve as a model for US allies in the 21st century’.