Pakistan more dangerous than Iran?

BERLIN, June 14 (UPI) -- A U.S. security expert believes Pakistan, not Iran, should be the principal U.S. concern as a nuclear threat.

"If there's any country we should be paying attention to it's Pakistan and not so much Iran," Charles Pena, a senior fellow at the Independent Institute and former director of defense policy studies at the Cato Institute, said Thursday at a conference at the German Council on Foreign Relations, a Berlin-based think tank.

The current administration in Islamabad, led by President Pervez Musharraf, is an ally of the United States in its war on terrorism. However, hopes that Musharraf will destroy surviving al-Qaida cells and help defeat a Taliban insurgency in neighboring Afghanistan have not materialized.

Some say Musharraf, who is under severe pressure to resign as his domestic popularity is declining, does not want to pursue al-Qaida at all. A military leader, he came to power in a bloodless coup in 1999 and has clung to power ever since.

Washington nevertheless supports him because it knows the alternatives could be much worse: Elections are coming up, and radical Islamist forces have gained support in Pakistan, a country that possesses nuclear weapons.

Unlike the leadership in Tehran, a post-Musharraf government would very likely be a "radical Islamic regime with real ties to terrorist groups," Pena added.