NEW YORK - A former US ambassador to the UN has urged the Obama administration to consider extracting as many nuclear weapons as possible from Pakistan in an attempt to somewhat mitigate the consequences of regime collapse as the Taliban make rapid gains in the country. President (Barack) Obamas talks next week in Washington with the presidents of Afghanistan and Pakistan provide a clear opportunity to take the hard steps necessary to secure Pakistans nuclear arsenal and defeat the Taliban, John Bolton, a hardliner who served under the Bush administration, wrote in a newspaper article published on Saturday. Failure to act decisively could well lead to strategic defeat in Pakistan, he wrote in The Wall Street Journal. President Asif Ali Zardari and his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai will also hold separate talks with Obama as well as a mini-summit, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Friday. The president looks forward to discussing with these two democratically elected leaders how we can work together to enhance our cooperation in this important part of the world as the United States implements a new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, said Gibbs. In his article, Bolton, now a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a think-tank, makes more sweeping statement as he voices serious concern over the situation in Pakistan. To prevent catastrophe will require considerable American effort and unquestionably provoke resistance from many Pakistanis, often for widely differing reasons, he said. We must strengthen pro-American elements in Pakistans military so they can purge dangerous Islamicists from their ranks; roll back Taliban advances; and, together with our increased efforts in Afghanistan, decisively defeat the militants on either side of the border. This may mean stifling some of our democratic squeamishness and acquiescing in a Pakistani military takeover, if the civilian government melts before radical pressures. So be it. Moreover, we must strive to keep Indo-Pakistani relations stable, if not friendly, and pressure Islamabad to put nuclear-weapons proliferator and father of Pakistans nuclear programme Abdul Qadeer Khan back under house arrest. Bolton said, Unless there is swift, decisive action against the Islamic radicals there, Pakistan faces two very worrisome scenarios. One scenario is that instability continues to grow, and that the radicals disrupt both Pakistans weak democratic institutions and the military. Often known as Pakistans 'steel skeleton for holding the country together after successive corrupt or incompetent civilian governments, the military itself is now gravely threatened from within by rising pro-Taliban sentiment. In these circumstances - especially if, as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton testified recently, the nuclear arsenal has been dispersed around the country - there is a tangible risk that several weapons could slip out of military control. Such weapons could then find their way to al-Qaeda or other terrorists, with obvious global implications. The second scenario is even more dangerous. Instability could cause the constitutional government to collapse entirely and the military to fragment. This could allow a well-organized, tightly disciplined group to seize control of the entire Pakistani government. While Taliban-like radicals might not have even a remote chance to prevail in free and fair elections, they could well take advantage of chaos to seize power. If that happened, a radical Islamicist regime in Pakistan would control a substantial nuclear weapons capacity. Not only could this second scenario give international terrorists even greater access to Pakistans nuclear capabilities, the risk of nuclear confrontation with India would also increase dramatically. Moreover, Iran would certainly further accelerate its own weapons program, followed inexorably by others in the region (eg, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Turkey) obtaining nuclear weapons, perhaps through direct purchase from Islamabads new regime. To prevent either scenario, Pakistan must move to the top of our strategic agenda, albeit closely related to Afghanistan. (Pashtuns on both sides of the border are the major source of Taliban manpower, although certainly not the only locus of radical support.) Contrary to Western 'international nannies, the primary conflict motivators in both countries are ethnic and tribal loyalties, religious fanaticism and simple opportunism. It is not a case of the 'have nots rising against the 'haves, but of True Believers on a divine mission. Accordingly, neither greater economic assistance, nor more civilian advisers upcountry, nor stronger democratic institutions will eliminate the strategic threat nearly soon enough. We didnt get here overnight. We are reaping the consequences of failed nonproliferation policies that in the past penalized Pakistan for its nuclear programme by cutting off military assistance and scaling back the International Military Education and Training (IMET) program that brought hundreds of Pakistani officers to the US. Globally, this extraordinarily successful programme has bound generations of foreign military leaders to their US counterparts. Past cut-offs with Pakistan have harmed our bilateral relationship. Perhaps inevitably, the Pakistani officers who havent participated in IMET are increasingly subject to radical influences. Moreover, the Bush administration, by pushing former President Pervez Musharraf into unwise elections and effectively removing him from power, simply exacerbated the instability within Pakistans already frail system. Mr Musharrafs performance against the terrorists left much to be desired, and he was no democrat. But removing him was unpleasantly reminiscent of the 1963 coup against South Vietnams Diem regime, which ushered in a succession of ever-weaker, revolving-door governments, thus significantly facilitating the ultimate Communist takeover. Benazir Bhuttos assassination, while obviously unforeseen, was a direct consequence of our excessive electoral zeal...