Pakistan’s New Khan?

The Pakistani decision to release A.Q. Khan from house arrest has sent a shiver through the international community and is yet another sign that Pakistan continues down the path of being America's greatest "frenemy" of the 21st century as both an indispensable security partner and perhaps the most dangerous nation on Earth. A.Q. Khan is one of the most popular figures in Pakistan and his unrestricted re-entry to society brings a big popularity bump to the government at a time it needs all the support it can get to compensate for the near-civil war it is fighting in Swat and elsewhere. But does that make the world a safer place? Khan's global black market nuclear network specialized in helping countries like Iran, North Korea, Libya, and perhaps others with the longest pole in the nuclear tent: enrichment technology. It's hard to understand how a few years of house arrest could have rehabilitated a master criminal. One imagines that if he chooses to reconstitute his network (if it isn't reconstituted already), it could do a pretty brisk business with Iran's neighbors.