Cricket to politics, Imran takes on saver's role

Life has come a full circle for Pakistani cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan.

Khan, after years of captaining his team in international games, has now taken upon a new challenge -- to lead his country to stability by brokering peace between the Pakistani government and the Pakistani Taliban.

For, he said, he could not watch the mayhem in his country as hundreds died in blasts and attacks every day.

"I suggested it a week ago," he told UK daily Telegraph.

"If Karzai (Afghanistan's president) and the coalition forces are beginning to talk to the Afghan Taliban, why aren't we talking to the Pakistani Taliban? I have offered to act as a go-between."

Khan, who was in London to meet his children from former wife Jemima Goldsmith, said he had the trust of the Pakistani people in this proposed deal, as they believed him to be independent of bias.

"I don't want it to seem as though I am doing deals with the Taliban behind the government's back. I told the Prime Minister, Yousaf Gilani, I will broker a deal, and before I left for Britain, two of the Taliban leaders contacted me to say they would go along with it -- they trust me. I am the only one they trust because I am not seen as an American stooge. The people know I am independent."

Khan was in London to garner the support from the city and from his alma mater the Oxford Union.

"I've asked the (Pakistani) prime minister to call an all-party conference, to provide a mandate from the Pakistan government, within the constitution and ratified by the government. The people are desperate for peace and stability. If Obama's surge of troops to Afghanistan is used to bring all parties to the table then there is hope for the future, otherwise Pakistan could become the failed state everyone fears it will. My country is fighting for its survival. I would do anything I could," Khan told the Telegraph.

Like many Pakistani leaders, Khan believes the war on Afghanistan would bring no solution.

"The coalition forces have to get out of Afghanistan. This war is immoral, insane and unwinnable. The Pashtun, the mountain tribes of Afghanistan and Pakistan, hate outsiders. They fight each other but they close ranks against foreigners and that's what's happening. It has become a war against occupation," he said.

"There is only one workable strategy. We have to try to form a government of consensus in Afghanistan. Then exit. Leave Afghanistan. You can't split the Afghans; the more they bomb, the more they alienate, and the more people will fight against them.

"To win this war there will have to be a mass genocide of the Pashtun," he said.

Khan, who entered politics in 1996 by joining a little-known party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (Movement for Justice) and later went on to form his own party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, believes that people will elect him to the post of prime minister of Pakistan, if mid-term elections are held this year.

"Pakistan politics have never been so exciting, or so dangerous," he said.

The former cricketer, who was once known as a playboy, is now fighting for justice and peace in Pakistan.

"My mission is to cure my country of endemic corruption," he said.

Image: Pakistani politician and former cricketer Imran Khan