ISLAMABAD -- Weeks of adverse publicity surrounding the alleged exchange of Pakistan's nuclear knowhow for North Korea's missile technology has a familiar ring for South Asia's second-largest country. Many of the latest allegations have emerged from American newspaper sources. Although U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell has said he sees no reason for U.S. sanctions against Pakistan, his remarks indicate he has indeed warned Pakistan about the "consequences" of contacts with North Korea.

Pakistan went through a similar episode in the 1980s. While, on one hand, the regime of the late Gen. Zia ul-Haq emerged as the closest ally of the United States in confronting Soviet troops that had occupied Afghanistan, periodic leaks claimed that Pakistan was developing nuclear weapons -- to the distress of the so-called nonproliferation lobby. Then too, like today, a military regime ruled the country, one that had a close alliance with the Reagan administration.

In 1990, after Soviet troops withdrew from Afghanistan and Washington's strategic objectives ended, the U.S. slapped Pakistan with a harsh set of economic and military sanctions driven by the Pressler amendment, which forbade aid to the country if there was proof that it had acquired nuclear technology.