Pakistan uses ‘terrorism as tool’ against India,
former CIA director
Former CIA acting director Michael Morell, in
a podcast discussion with Kurt Campbell and Rich Verma on Thursday, alleged
that Pakistan is one of the most dangerous countries in the world.
Pakistan, obsessed with India as a perceived
existential threat, has “created terrorist groups to be a tool” in its struggle
against India, a former top American spymaster has said.
Former CIA acting director Michael Morell, in
a podcast discussion with Kurt Campbell and Rich Verma on Thursday, alleged
that Pakistan is one of the most dangerous countries in the world.
Pakistan has “created terrorist groups to be a
tool” in their struggle against India, Mr. Morell said.
Mr. Campbell, the former Assistant Secretary of State for East
Asian Affairs and Verma, the former US Ambassador to India, now regularly host
‘The Tealeaves’ Podcast of the Asia Group.
“What they don’t realise is that it’s impossible to keep those
terrorist groups under control. And that eventually comes back to bite you. You
know, I believe that Pakistan, at the end of the day, maybe the most dangerous
country in the world,” Mr. Morell said.
Mr. Morell who played a key role in the Abbottabad raid that
killed Osama bin Laden -- the al-Qaeda chief and mastermind behind the
September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States -- in a safe house in
Pakistan, said that the population of this South Asian country is exploding,
and the demographics are awful.
“The economy’s going nowhere. It simply can’t provide the jobs
that need to be provided for the young people who are entering the labour
force. The education system is literally broken. I went to Pakistan more often
than I went to any other country when I was deputy director,” he said, referring
to his impression about Pakistan when he was the deputy head in the CIA during
the Obama administration.
There’s no wonder that many Pakistani parents send their kids to
madrasa and one knows what happens to a small percentage of the kids who go
there.
“The extremism is growing from a societal perspective. It’s
growing within the military. So, it is not impossible, not tomorrow, not next
week, not next year, but five years from now, 10 years from now that you could
have a color revolution, Arab spring style movement in the streets of Islamabad
that ends up with an extremist government there with nuclear weapons. That’s
what so scary,” Mr. Morell said.
According to Mr. Morell, then president Barack Obama’s Pakistan
policy in his first term was to get the Pakistanis to see their strategic
environment in a real way.
“They still see India and, I think, for foreseeable future, will
see India as an existential threat to the state of Pakistan. It’s not, it’s
just not. India stopped focusing on Pakistan a long time ago. They’re focusing
on their economic future,” he argued.
But because the Pakistanis are so obsessed with this perceived
existential threat, they’ve both organised their society in order to protect
themselves from that threat. So, they’ve given an immense amount of power to
the military, and much less power to the civilian government, he said.
“The government therefore makes choices that I don’t believe,
and many people don’t believe are in the best long term interest of Pakistan.
Pakistan has spent more money on nuclear weapons than they do in education.
“And they use terrorism as a tool against the Indians... and
then also in Afghanistan, because they fear Indian influence in Afghanistan. So
they’ve created terrorist groups, right to be a tool of theirs in the struggle
against India,” Mr. Morell added.
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