“Pakistan most dangerous country to deal with”, says former US defence secretary Jim Mattis

Former US Defence Secretary James Mattis has reffered Pakistan as “the most dangerous country” he had to deal with. Mattis made the remark in his latest book, Call Sign Chaos: Learning to Lead.

“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. 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”, Mattis wrote in the autobiography

Mattis also said that Pakistan lacks leaders who care about their future. “The tragedy for the Pakistani people is that they don’t have leaders who care about their future. As an illustration of the lack of trust, when we believed we had identified Osama bin Laden’s hiding place deep inside Pakistan, President (Barack) Obama sent in a team to kill him without informing the Pakistanis,” he said.

“We could manage our problems with Pakistan, but our divisions were too deep, and trust too shallow, to resolve them.”he further added while reflecting on US-Pakistan relations.

“The lack of trust was the reason why former President Barack Obama did not inform Pakistan about the raid by US Navy SEALS that discovered and killed terrorist Osama bin Laden in a compound in Abbottabad in 2011”, Mattis said.

“Ultimately, it was in our common interest that we maintain a cautious, mindful relationship, with modest expectations of collaboration. We could manage our problems with Pakistan, but our divisions were too deep, and trust too shallow, to resolve them. And that is the state of our relationship to this day,” he writes.