The Most Dangerous Job on Earth

The Most Dangerous Job on Earth – Roger Cohen, International Herald Tribune

Asif Ali Zardari, Pakistan’s new president and the widower of Benazir Bhutto, does not mince words in his determination to defeat a growing Taliban insurgency.

“It is my decision that we will go after them, we will free this country,” he told me in an interview. “Yes, this is my first priority because I will have no country otherwise. I will be president of what?”

After the massive bomb attack on the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad, that’s a fair question. Its finances in a free fall, its security crumbling, nuclear-armed Pakistan stands at the brink just as a civilian takes charge after the futile zigzagging of General Pervez Musharraf’s U.S.-supported rule.

I asked Zardari, who took office this month, if the assassination of his wife last year motivated him to confront Islamic militancy. “Of course,” he said, “It’s my revenge. I take it every day.”

He continued: “I will fight them because they are a cancer to my society, not because of my wife only, but because they are a cancer, yes, and they did kill the mother of my children, so their way of life is what I want to kill. I will suck the oxygen out of their system so there will be no Talibs.”

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