Clinton: Pakistan 'abdicating to the extremists'

WASHINGTON -- Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Wednesday that Pakistan's government was not doing enough to deal with insurgents and the Taliban and was "basically abdicating to the extremists."

In her first congressional testimony since her confirmation hearing in January, Clinton strongly criticized Islamabad over a peace deal reached last week that allows militants in Pakistan's northwest to impose Islamic law in exchange for a cease-fire with Taliban insurgents.

She called on the Pakistani diaspora to "speak out forcefully" against the government's policy of "ceding more and more territory to the insurgents and the Taliban."

"I think that we cannot underscore the seriousness (enough)," Clinton said, adding that "a loosely confederated group of terrorists and others who are seeking the overthrow of the Pakistani state" are "now within hours of Islamabad."

Pakistan's president signed off on the peace pact last week in hopes of calming the Swat region, where about two years of clashes between the Taliban and security forces have killed hundreds and displaced up to a third of the one-time tourist haven's 1.5 million residents. The agreement covers an area of about 10,000 square miles near the Afghan border and the tribal areas where al-Qaeda and the Taliban have strongholds.

Supporters of the deal say it will allow the government to gradually reassert control by taking away the militants' rallying cry for Islamic law. Critics, including in Washington, warn that the valley could become an officially sanctioned base for allies of al-Qaeda — and that it may be just the first domino in nuclear-armed Pakistan to fall to the Taliban.

Clinton also said Wednesday that the Pakistani government "shares our goals in respect to the terrorist threat"

On Iran, Clinton said that by trying to talk Iran out of its nuclear program the U.S. is in a better position to organize tougher international sanctions in the event that diplomacy fails.

"We actually believe that by following the diplomatic path we are on, we gain credibility and influence with a number of nations who would have to participate in order to make the sanctions regime as tight and as crippling as we would want it to be," Clinton told the House Foreign Affairs Committee.