Ex-CIA officer airs concerns about Pakistan

Issues that Americans worry about, such as terrorism and nuclear proliferation, come together in a dangerous way in Pakistan, said a former CIA officer and senior adviser on the Middle East to presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.

Bruce Riedel was in Riverside on Monday to give a talk sponsored by the World Affairs Council of Inland Southern California based at Riverside City College.

He based the title of his talk, "Pakistan: The Most Dangerous Country in the World," on a memo he wrote to Clinton.

Riedel said the purpose of the talk is to expose people to the complexity of the problem of Pakistan.

"If there is a nuclear war in our lifetimes, it's most likely between Pakistan and India," Riedel said in an interview before his talk.

If there is another 9/11-type event, it will come from Pakistan, Riedel said.

Riedel was on Clinton's staff in 1999 when he wrote a memo that contributed to Clinton's efforts to engage with the Pakistanis. But that effort was foiled by a 1999 coup by Gen. Pervez Musharraf, Riedel said.

Riedel decided to study the Middle East after growing up as the child of a political adviser at the U.N. He received a bachelor's degree from Brown University and a master's degree from Harvard. A Brookings Institution fellow since 2006, he unofficially began advising then-Sen. Barack Obama on foreign policy affairs in April 2007.

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