In these situations I like to point out that Pakistan also has nukes, Muslim terrorists, and skirmishes with another ally of ours (India) and there's no political campaign to crush them over it.
A lot of this is just a consequence of repeated exposure to foreign propaganda. It's not reasonable policy.
The fact of nukes is that they are both a get out of international jail free card and security against existential threat.
Previous decade arms control understood this, and understood something very valuable needed to be offered to keep countries from pursuing them.
Current nuclear arms control is failing (Iran, North Korea) because the international community is pretending they aren't worth pursuing at almost any cost.
If a country wants to pursue a foreign policy antagonistic or counter to the US, they'd be insane not to develop nuclear weapons.
Arguably if India had the intel and military means/technology to quash Pakistan's nuclear program without a full-on invasion at the time they would have. I'm sure several other countries would have too, but the ability just wasn't there during the 70s
"In these situations I like to point out that Pakistan also has nukes, Muslim terrorists ..."
Tell me, did the "Muslim terrorists" nuked Hiroshima and Nakasaki? did the "Muslim terrorists" massacre the Vitenamese and Cambodians ? What about the current genocide occuring in Gaza ?
Dear god I can't even articulate how cunning is/was the western media when it comes to brainwash their people.
A lot of this is just a consequence of repeated exposure to foreign propaganda. It's not reasonable policy.