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A former senior American official has said that Pakistan poses more of a "threat" to the United States than does the situation in Iraq.
A former deputy secretary of defence and currently the president of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), John J Hamre, who is also one of the principal think-tanks, told the New York-based publication India Abroad in an interview published this week that in his opinion the situation in Pakistan "poses more threat to the United States than does the situation in Iraq."
"President Pervez Musharraf," he claimed, "has survived six assassination attempts. India," he added, "is "pretty upset with Mr Musharraf, but the way it looks to Washington is that Mr Musharraf is the most constructive person you can work with in Pakistan."
Warming up to his theme, he said: "Certainly, we have to build up democracy in Pakistan. And certainly we have to help Pakistan deal with the failure of its economy that has produced such widespread unemployment, hopelessness, sense of despair, the breeding ground of hater and anger."
Mr Hamre went on to stress: "We also have to work with President Musharraf. I greatly worry that radical forces insides Pakistan, in the war with Iraq, would use that very cynically to promote their own agenda, and that agenda is very much likely to be anti-India, and in the near term, it could be anti-America as well.
"The greatest fear I have is of an India-Pakistan war. That the radicals stir up things in Kashmir. Relations are always tender and with the suspicions so deep, there are no speed-breaks on the road to war between India and Pakistan."
Mr Hamre, wondering if the United
States had any underlying interest in correcting these problems in Pakistan,
came to the conclusion that it has, "You bet we have. Are we doing enough
in dealing with that? No, not enough. I think we have embraced Mr Musharraf,
but we did not help to wrestle with his enormous problems. "Is he the best
person to work with? We ought to be helping him to have better control
over his country. I would argue even India has a role in all this. The
United States and India would suffer greatly if Pakistan fails."
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