task. it was interesting when we got some of the supporting reporting about what was going on in the administration to prepare for this speech and we got word that the vice president was speaking with the afghan president and that rex tillerson, secretary of state, was speaking with his equal number in afghanistan and pakistan and india. and i thought, uh-oh. is this the sort of thing are our relations with pakistan so tender and fragile that bellicose words like this from the president can really screw things up, or do they expect that that has to happen in our politics and they think the real conversations happen on the line with i don t know. i d have to defer it to a real specialist in pakistani politics. we have often called out the pakistanis privately.
region anywhere in the world. for its part, pakistan often gives safe haven to agents of chaos, violence and terror. the threat is worse because pakistan and india are two nuclear armed states whose tense relations threaten to spiral into conflict, and that could happen. no one denies that we have inherited a challenging and troubling situation in afghanistan and south asia. but we do not have the luxury of going back in time and making different or better decisions. when i became president i was given a bad and very complex hand. but i fully knew what i was getting into. big and intricate problems. but one way or another these problems will be solved.
he said that pakistan needs to demonstrate that it is committed to civilization, order and peace telling a country they are not committed to civilization is calling them barbarians. then he immediately followed it by saying and we would like more direct involvement in afghanistan from india which will raise hackles in the pakistani government because of the relationship between those two countries. that seems to me the biggest change in diplomatic relations tonight. that s what leaped out at me. american diplomats and presidents have made a pact, you don t go to pakistan without going to india. it s an even-handed approach. you have two nuclear arm states and they have fought so many wars between them and this is a direct insult to pakistan which deserves the insult because they protect and shelter to haqqani network. but for first of all laying the responsibility on pakistan to do something about their terrorism, it s not done this openly.
but i also have to see exactly what this is. if i look at the policy that the obama administration had toward the war in afghanistan it s not that much different from what we heard tonight. so i think we have to figure out, you know, what the president said is going to be really significant and what is going to be a change and what s going to be different. i think you were right to highlight the way in which the president called out india and wanting india to play a larger role in afghanistan. this of course is the will trigger all of the gravest fears in the pakistani military and the pakistani deep state. so one last question for you. the issue about that andrea raised about the privatization plan that we heard floated. i won t believe it s dead until i see a stake in its heart but it s is it possible if they are really considering taking the u.s. military out and putting in thousands of private contractors under eric prince s leadership to run this as a for-profit private ente
i think the pakistan stuff, that could be significant. we ll see. it s going to cause ripples. my question and i hate to go to the operational side of things. but so many of our lines of communication and resupply run through pakistan. it will be interesting to see how they thread that needle. on one hand dependent on them and on the other hand taking them to task, fairly. it was interesting when we got the supporting reporting around what was going on in the administration to prepare for this speech and we got word that the vice president was speaking with the afghan president and that rex tillerson was speaking with his his equal member in pakistan and india and afghanistan and i thought we re going to pakistan on this subject. are our relations with pakistan so tender and fragile that bellicose words like this from