Pak a fragile entity surviving on anti-India sentiment: Rice

Former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice believes Pakistan is a fragile entity, which has been facing an "identity crisis" since it won independence, as a result of which certain elements in the country have found refuge in extremism and anti-India sentiment.

In a rare public appearance after January 20, when Barack Obama took over from George W Bush as president of the United States, Rice said India does not want to be part of this crisis and is focusing on more positive things like economic development.

"Pakistan is just such a fragile entity," Rice said on Sunday in response to a question at Jewish Primary Day School in Washington after delivering the Yitzhak Rabin memorial lecture. She was responding to a question on the current situation in Pakistan, which Rice said has now moved to being a "daily management problem".

Rice, who had played a crucial role in defusing the tension between India and Pakistan after the Mumbai terrorist attacks, said: "You know, having been carved as it was, essentially, out of India, its identity has always been a problem and it's always -- not always, but some elements in Pakistan find their identity through extremism and through extreme anti-India sentiment.

"So there are some people for whom there is no positive agenda for Pakistan; it's all about aggression."

As part of long-term solutions, Rice suggested overhauling the fundamentalist structure of Pakistan's primary education system.

"I think that the only way to deal with this is -- there's a long-term problem -- long-term possibility -- got to deal with those madrassas and get better education for Pakistani kids," she said.

In an apparent reference to the new policy of the Obama administration that concentrates on the developmental aspect of Pakistan by tripling non-military aid to the country, she said: "These longer-term things -- economic development, educational development -- that's all going to take time."

India, she observed, does not want to be part of a crisis any longer. "I think they've moved on to other things, like Bollywood," Rice said, amidst laughter.

She said the key to success in Afghanistan is elimination of safe havens of terrorists in Pakistan. "We're going to be struggling there [Afghanistan] for a long time. But as long as you can prevent the Taliban from making strategic victories and as long as you can do something about Pakistan and that border, I think, eventually, it will work in Afghanistan," Rice said.