Situation dangerous in Pakistan: Holbrooke

WASHINGTON: US special envoy for Pakistan and Afghanistan Richard Holbrooke warned on Sunday that no other place in the world today faced a more dangerous situation than Pakistan.In an interview to CNN, Holbrooke said that Pakistan also faced a ‘very difficult economic situation’ and needed immediate help.‘This is a really dangerous situation in Pakistan today and we are focused on this very heavily,’ said Holbrooke.
Asked if the terrorist threat could cause Pakistan to collapse, the US envoy said that President Asif Ali Zardari and other Pakistani leaders too conceded that it was a very dangerous situation.‘Swat is not in the tribal areas. It is only 100 miles from Islamabad … it is like East Hampton and Manhattan … people from Islamabad went to Swat for holidays … it is really an extraordinary situation.’‘Pakistan mattered to the national security of the United States; ‘These are the people who can attack Mumbai, who attack Islamabad, Holbrooke said.David Axelrod, a senior adviser to President Obama, told ‘CBS Face the Nation’ that Pakistan needed to ‘really focus in on what is a threat to their own stability and what is a threat to the security of the world.’White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, however, told ABC News that the Obama administration had put ‘in place a policy in Afghanistan and Pakistan area that will change that area’ and bring stability to the region.Axelrod said the biggest threat confronting Pakistan was the ‘growing hegemony of the Taliban and allies of Al Qaeda’ and urged Pakistanis to realise how serious this threat was.Ambassador Holbrooke termed the current situation in Pakistan as ‘very perilous’ and claimed that the militants operating from Swat and Fata had already increased their reach to Punjab. ‘There can be more terrorist attacks in cities like Lahore, Islamabad and Karachi,’ he warned.He said the Swat truce always seemed like a confused deal to him.
The Pakistani military, he said, felt that it was ‘stretched thin’ and that’s why it concluded this deal.Holbrooke pointed out that if the Pakistani military wanted to persuade the militants to lay down their arms by concluding this deal, it did not succeed in doing so.The chief spokesman for the Swat Taliban ‘publicly renounced the part of the deal that requires the militants to lay down arms,’ he said.‘You cannot deal with these people by giving away territory. They are now getting closer and closer to Islamabad and Punjab.’Ambassador Holbrooke said he was witnessing a ‘very dangerous phenomenon’ in Swat which had equally dangerous consequences for both Pakistan and Afghanistan.The US envoy, however, acknowledged that ‘hitting the militants hard” will not help.‘First of all, we need to do deal with economic and social roots,’ he said, adding that more economic aid was needed to do away with the breeding grounds for the kind of rebellions witnessed in Swat more than once.Holbrooke said Pakistan also needed to strengthen its military, particularly the Frontier Corps, to deal with the terrorists and also needed to win the propaganda battle.Asked who ran Pakistan, President Zardari or Gen Ashfaq Kayani, Holbrooke said: ‘The clear answer is that Mr Zardari is the president, and Gen Kayani is the army chief.’The Pakistani constitution, he said, gave more powers to the president but the army had played a very powerful role.Gen Kayani, he said, was a ‘sincere, intelligent and decent person,’ who has said ‘does not wish to get involved in political issues and we believe him.’