Admiral Mullen Extremely Concerned by Pakistan Crisis--Potential of Theocratic Gov't. With 60 Nukes

[tekisui]

Source: Bloomberg

March 13 (Bloomberg) -- Admiral Michael Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he is “extremely concerned” by the political crisis in nuclear-armed Pakistan and that officials are closely monitoring opposition protests there.

The situation “continues to deteriorate very, very slowly under a political leadership which is very challenged because of the totality of the crisis,” Mullen said in an interview with PBS’s Charlie Rose broadcast late yesterday.

President Asif Ali Zardari is trying to quell protests by the main opposition party and lawyers demanding he reinstate judges fired by former military ruler Pervez Musharraf in 2007. His government is struggling against a slumping economy and trying to control Taliban and al-Qaeda linked militants who have seized broad swathes of Pakistani territory in recent months.

Mullen said he doesn’t believe there is a “high probability right now” the crisis will prompt Pakistan’s military to intervene. He said his Pakistani counterpart, General Ashfaq Kayani, is “committed to a civilian government” and doesn’t want to take over as his predecessor Musharraf did in 1999.

The Obama administration is pressing Pakistan to escalate the fight against Taliban guerrillas and other militants along the border with Afghanistan.

Lisa Curtis, a senior research fellow at the Washington- based Heritage Foundation, said yesterday the political fighting risks leaving an opening for extremists to strike. Pakistan is the world’s second-most populous Muslim nation.

‘Theocratic Government’

“Pakistan is a country with nuclear weapons,” Mullen said in the interview. “It’s 165 million people and should we move to a point where somehow there is a theocratic government there with nuclear weapons, that’s something that keeps me up.”

Pakistani officials have repeatedly said there is no danger of the nation’s nuclear arsenal slipping into the hands of Islamic fundamentalists.

“Pakistan’s nuclear assets are in safe hands and under a strong multi-layered, institutionalized mechanism,” Foreign Office spokesman Abdul Basit told reporters in Islamabad yesterday, the official Associated Press of Pakistan reported.

Pakistan’s military has about 60 nuclear bombs, according to the Washington-based Arms Control Association.

more: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601080&sid=ar5Z_DVFcx8M&refer=asia

[tekisui]

1. From same article: If NATO doesn't succeed in Afghanistan, NATO....

“I think Afghanistan is a relevance issue for NATO,” said Mullen. “If NATO doesn’t succeed in Afghanistan, I don’t think NATO has much of a future.”

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

2. NATO is reluctant to further participate in a lost war. Hence, the bogeyman threat.

Falling dominoes redux.