NEW YORK, Sept 14: Bruce Riedel, a former high-ranking CIA official and a National Security Adviser to former president Clinton, has said that the US should be sensitive to some of Pakistan’s diplomatic needs.

In an interview with Philadelphia Inquirer, Mr Riedel said: “Pakistan, for example, would like the Durand Line, the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, to be accepted as a real international border by Afghanistan. It never has.

“No Afghan government has ever accepted this border. We have some leverage in Afghanistan now with the Kabul government. And we ought to think about whether we should use that leverage to make this border line drawn by the foreign secretary of British India in 1893 into a real border. That would be in Pakistan’s interest and I think in the long term it’s in everyone’s interest.”

He said the United States faced a very frustrating situation in Pakistan because the track record of civilian governments in Pakistan had been ‘pretty depressing’ and he envisioned a situation in President Asif Zardari’s mid-term “where army coming back and takes over the country”.

However, Mr Riedel added: “On the other hand, the track record of military dictators is also equally depressing.”

He said: “The country’s caught in a cycle of failed civilian and military regimes. And that’s a cycle which is progressively taking the country downhill.”

On the issue of cross-border attacks which Pakistan has strongly protested, Mr Riedel issued a caveat to the Bush Administration: “Pakistan is an extremely dangerous and unstable country. We need to tread carefully. We need to get the Pakistanis to see this as their war. And that’s going to require some major new initiatives on the American side. Commando raids and Predator strikes are not a long-term solution to this problem.”

Mr Riedel said: “The next administration, whether he is McCain or Obama, has got to reverse the distrust and the lack of faith in America that has accumulated, not just during President Bush’s administration — though he hasn’t helped — but over decades now.

“I think, if we work with the civilian government, show them we want democracy in Pakistan, if we increase our assistance to Pakistan, especially in economic areas as Sen. Joseph Biden and Sen. Richard Lugar have proposed,” Mr Riedel told Inquirer.