https://m.hindustantimes.com/world-...says-mattis/story-siUUli7XvoV3573EMttP0O.html
Updated: Sep 04, 2019 08:08 IST
By Yashwant Raj , Hindustan Times,
Washington
Former US defense secretary James Mattis
has said he considers Pakistan as the “most
dangerous country” he dealt with it in a long
career spanning decades in the military and
as a member of President Donald Trump’s
cabinet, because of the level of
radicalization of its society and its nuclear
weapons.
Mattis, who left the Trump administration in
January, also slammed Pakistan’s
obsession with India, saying it “views all
geopolitics through the prism of its hostility
toward India” and that has also shaped their
policy on Afghanistan as the “the Pakistan
military wanted a friendly government in
Kabul that was resistant to Indian influence”.
He has long years of experience dealing with
Pakistan and South Asia, first as a top US
Marine Corps commandeer in Afghanistan,
head of US central command and then as
secretary of defense.
“Of all the countries I’ve dealt with, I consider
Pakistan to be the most dangerous, because
of the radicalization of its society and the
availability of nuclear weapons,” Mattis has
written in “Call Sign Chaos”, an
autobiography that hit the stands Tuesday.
“We can’t have the fastest-growing nuclear
arsenal in the world falling into the hands of
the terrorists breeding in their midst. The
result would be disastrous.”
Pakistan has the world’s fastest growing
nuclear arsenal, with a substantial quantities
of tactical weapons that its leaders have
publicly boasted about, including a member
or Prime Minister Imran Khan’s cabinet
recently. And Mattis writes, echoing a
longstanding US concern, “We can’t have the
fastest-growing nuclear arsenal in the world
falling into the hands of the terrorists
breeding in their midst”
He went on to castigate Pakistani leaders, in
an indirect comment on the current Imran
Khan government, saying “they don’t have
leaders who care about their future”.
Mattis also framed US-Pakistan relations as
a continuing narrative afflicted by
differences and distrust. “We could manage
our problems with Pakistan, but our
divisions were too deep, and trust too
shallow, to resolve them,” writes.
That was the reason why, Mattis contends,
President Barack Obama did not inform
Pakistan of the US Navy SEALs raid that
found and killed Osama bin Laden in May
2011. Mattis, a Marine Corps general, was
then head of the US central command that
has oversight over American military
operations in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
“And that is the state of our relationship to
this day,” Mattis writes in obvious
implications for the current attempts by the
Khan government to reset ties with the
United States by persuading the Taliban,
using Pakistan’s clout with them, to
participate in peace talks as President
Trump pushes to end the Afghanistan war,
the longest in US history.
