PRESIDENT Asif Ali Zardari has warned that Taliban extremists could take advantage of the countrys floods crisis, as he defended his own much-criticised handling of the catastrophe. The self-exiled MQM leader, Altaf Hussain, whose party is part of the ruling coalition, has said a French revolution was required, calling on the military to weed out corrupt politicians and feudal lords. Pakistan has been ruled for most of its existence by its military but Zardari insisted that the multiple crises would stop another coup. I dont think anybody in their right mind would want to take responsibility; its only democracy that can carry the yoke, President Zardari told the Guardian. Yes, there will be disappointments, so political forces are there for that reason. We will rebuild Pakistan a better place. But in between well have to go through the trauma of bad medicine, good medicine, pain; well have to live through that. Zardari said the furore surrounding his overseas trip at the start of the disaster actually showed how much he is wanted at home. However, he said he believed Pakistanis had the resilience to withstand the challenge. Obviously the only political forces waiting in the quarters is the rightist forces, Zardari said. The ideal hope for the radical [is] that hopefully the structure of the state will fail and he will evolve and come out the winner. Its like when they assassinated my wife. It was not just an action to get rid of a prime minister-to-be, it was an action because her personality was a challenge to their ideology. Speaking about the potential threat to the flooded country, Zardari suggested Pakistani Taliban may kidnap children dislocated by the flooding and put them in terrorist training camps. I always see such organisations and such people [extremists] taking advantage of situations like this, he said. They evolved through the human crisis of Afghanistan, they evolved in such a situation. [We must] try to be the buffer between them taking the children, keeping them in the orphanages, and trying to create them into robots. The president, who was already unpopular in Pakistan because of allegations of corruption, was heavily criticised for going ahead with an official visit to France and Britain earlier this month while the flood calamity was unfolding. Zardari said the trip had allowed him to build his relationship with David British Prime Minister David Cameron and French President Nicolas Sarkozy. It [the criticism] gives me a reassurance that Im so wanted, said Zardari. Im so wanted and so desired by people, that [they say] 'why are you out? I have my own reason for being where I was at what time. I know that this is a long-term situation, and one has to have the capacity to sustain oneself for three years and not exhaust yourself immediately. Agencies add: According to more details of his interaction with foreign media including Time magazine, President Zardari said he did not expect trouble from rival political parties, which also had a stake in maintaining stability. Even if [Zardaris chief rival former prime minister Nawaz Sharifs] party is opposing me in the centre, they are sharing power with us in the province, he insisted. President Zardari ruled out imposition of martial law, saying that the problems the country was facing were too great to inspire a usurper. He declined to respond to the suggestions that his political coalition was cracking. The President admitted that his government would face social disarray, with militants keen to take advantage of the crisis. He said with 20 million people affected, Pakistan will not fully recover. I dont think anybody will fully recover. I dont think people have fully recovered from the shock of Katrina, or 9/11 for that matter. I dont think New Yorkers have fully recovered from the shock of that. Already unpopular and perceived to be weak before the disaster, Zardari appeared to resign himself to even more criticism. There will be discontentment, he said. There is no way any nation, even if its a superpower - weve seen examples in Katrina, weve seen Haiti, weve seen examples everywhere else - can bring the same level of satisfaction that will be close to the expectations of people. Zardari praised Washington for leading a humanitarian effort with the largest contribution, $150 million. But then, while expressing a wish that his ally the US could have done more, he meandered into an unusual comparison. Everybody knows that the Americans want to help and have helped as much as they can, he said. But America itself is going through a lot of economic crises. They are helping as much as they can ... I would love for them to love me as much as GM [General Motors]. But then, GM is made in America and belongs to America. After all, Im another country. And their taxpayers will only allow this much of support. He scattered other stray and sometimes odd observations throughout the interview: The answer to democracy is more democracy. Its not the sun that melts the glacier, its the rain. Were on the Soviet border. Dressed in a gray shalwar kameez and matching waistcoat, the embattled President insisted that his government was capable of rising to the occasion. Surely we will try and meet [expectations] as much as we can, and as far as we can. We will stretch the Band-Aid to the maximum. Zardari said Islamabads resolve to fight the militants had not slackened. Im hoping that most of them have drowned also, he said with a slight smile. I also have information that some of their armaments have come down. Since the flooding began, the government has been roundly criticised for failing to mount an adequate response, and the Presidents 20pc approval rating has dipped even further. Much of the problem, he said, lay with poor infrastructure. I think [Pakistan] was not geared to cater to such an eventuality. According to Time, privately, Zardaris aides concede that the government was slow to respond to the crisis. Now, they insist, damage control is being done, and their boss is back in fighting form.