Pakistan’s nuclear weapons bigger worry than Iran: US official

http://www.firstpost.com/

Nuclear weapons of Pakistan poses more danger to the global security than “over-exaggerating” threat from Iran, a former US official has said. “Are we endangering our own safety and that of Israel by over-exaggerating the nuclear threat posed by Iran while drastically under-estimating the growing threat posed by Pakistan? Someone in authority had better answer that question before it’s too late,” said Douglas MacKinnon a former White House and Pentagon official and author of the memoir ‘Rolling Pennies In The Dark’ in an op-ed on the Fox News yesterday. “Day after day, week after week, and now literally year after year, we hear constantly about soon to be unleashed nuclear threat from Iran,” he said.

MacKinnon said, in a somewhat bizarre moment of candour from President Barack Obama — as related by actor George Clooney — when Clooney asked Obama several years ago what kept him awake at night, President Obama eventually answered ”Pakistan.” Strange that he would admit that to Clooney and not the American people, but no matter, how right the president was and is to fear the multiple threats emanating from that nation, he wrote. “Going back to the media and politician hype regarding Iran, it is almost always coupled with a mention of the State of Israel. During my time in the Pentagon, I had the opportunity to work with the Israeli Defence forces. Today, I fear President Obama is moving further and further away from supporting our best ally and friend in the Middle East for reasons known only to him,” he said. “As that reality is upon us, some of the leaders and people of Israel seem to be getting caught up in the same ”Iran hype” which floods our media and losing sight of the more lethal threat to their safety,” he said.

According to MacKinnon, addressing that real threat, a journalist in Israel recently sought to remind his nation of the dangers posed by Pakistan. In his piece, he quoted Tarek Fatah, founder of the Muslim Canadian Congress who has said: ”The nuclear threat from Iran is a real one, but the nuclear threat from its neighbour Pakistan is just as dangerous if not more so… Pakistan has emerged as the world’s number one source of jihadi suicide bombers and ground zero for the training of Islamic terrorists around the world.” A few months earlier, Dr Rafael Ofek, a former senior researcher and analyst in Israeli Intelligence and an expert in the technology of nuclear power, warned of the same threat, the former White House official said.

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