'ISI using Taliban to hold on Indian positions'

Describing Pakistan's future as bleak over the next five years, he said, "the civilian leadership in the country has little interest in governing the country and was more interested in out-manoeuvring each other".

"The terrorists are widening their net and Pakistan's ISI was continuing to use the Taliban to hold on to strategic Indian positions as well as Afghanistan," he said at a conference on Indo-US relations.

Blackwill said there should be talks between India and the United States on how to deal with Pakistan. "There is no single issue which fundamentally affects the two countries as this", he added.

Observing that NATO was not winning the war in Iraq, he said, "India should be a major partner of the United States in Afghanistan".

On the rise of China, Blackwill said, "containment is not an option" adding that the United States was in itself not in a position to control China.

"Both American attack on Iran and Tehran acquiring a nuclear arsenal would have terrible consequences," he said.