Former United States Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has said in a book that he considers Pakistan “the most dangerous” of all countries he dealt with in his career. Mattis made the remark in his latest book, Call Sign Chaos: Learning to Lead, the Hindustan Times reported.
Mattis is a military veteran and served as Defense Secretary from January 2017 to December 2018.
“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,” Mattis wrote in the autobiography, which was released on Tuesday. “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 also said that Pakistan lacks leaders “who care about their future”. Reflecting on US-Pakistan relations, he said: “We could manage our problems with Pakistan, but our divisions were too deep, and trust too shallow, to resolve them.”
Mattis said 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. “And that is the state of our relationship to this day,” Mattis added.
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