"[Rashid] literally wrote the book on the Taliban and now has added a superb work on the future of Pakistan."The Washington Post Kirkus Reviews Pakistan on the Brink is a page turner. Through Ahmed Rashid's eloquent, incisive, objective, and fact-based descriptions of events and blunders repeatedly committed by the Afghan, Pakistani, and American establishments, the reader gets a great understanding of the genesis of the quagmire for which President Obama has coined the phrase AfPak." — Louisville Courier-Journal Descent into Chaos Wolf Blitzer Publishers Weekly Chicago Tribune The Philadelphia Inquirer Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Publishers Weekly (starred review)Time International Herald Tribune
"Ahmed Rashid's latest work provides essential insights for anyone who hopes to understand what's going on in Central Asia and the alternative futures that stretch out before it."
"Pakistan on the Brink is a page turner. Through Ahmed Rashid's eloquent, incisive, objective, and fact-based descriptions of events and blunders repeatedly committed by the Afghan, Pakistani, and American establishments, the reader gets a great understanding of the genesis of the quagmire for which President Obama has coined the phrase AfPak."
Louisville Courier-Journal
"[Rashid] literally wrote the book on the Taliban and now has added a superb work on the future of Pakistan."
…a superb work on the future of Pakistan…Rashid argues that there is a complex syndicate of jihadi terrorists operating today in Pakistan and Afghanistan…and [he] does a great job of describing how the Pakistani army and the ISI helped build this Frankenstein's monster over the past four decades.
With the killing of Osama bin Laden in May 2011 and the U.S. scheduled to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan in 2014, growing attention is focused on Afghanistan's far more populous and politically volatile eastern neighbor. Native son and journalist Rashid-who has written four previous books on Pakistan and on radical Islam in the region (including Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia) takes a closer look at his country's prospects and finds them extremely tenuous, given high illiteracy and poverty rates, as well as disputes between a weak civilian government and the military and intelligence service (ISI). Rashid maintains that Pakistan's approach to militant Islam is contradictory; it fights some Jihadists that directly threaten the country's interests, while utilizing others as proxies against India in Kashmir. Meanwhile, relations with the U.S. have sharply deteriorated since the assassination of bin Laden, which gave rise to differing accounts from Washington and Islamabad regarding Pakistani intelligence concerning bin Laden's whereabouts. Rashid unsparingly details Pakistan's multiple problems, along with those of the American-Pakistani relationship. His tone is too dire at times, but generally, this is a clear-headed, sobering look at a country whose ties with the U.S. are becoming ever more frayed. Agent: Flip Brophy, Sterling Lord Literistic.
If you follow the Washington Post, the New York Review of Books, NPR, or the BBC World Service, you'll know Rashid as the far-sighted Pakistani journalist who envisioned the emergence of Pakistan and reemergence of Afghanistan as important factors in the current Middle East equation. Here he considers what withdrawal from Afghanistan will mean for America, particularly as it reconsiders its relationship with Pakistan. Serious reading; with a six-city tour.
Arthur Morey's sober, measured delivery matches the seriousness and density of the information presented in Rashid's analysis of Pakistan's fragile balance and the dire impact its collapse would have worldwide. Morey employs an unemotional tone as he reports on the devastation that unrelenting warfare, corruption, and poverty have inflicted on this vulnerable society. His deliberate pace allows time to absorb Rashid's detailed account and to contemplate its implications as this unlikely nuclear power teeters among the diverse elements that are vying for influence and control. Skilled writing brings clarity to a difficult subject and is enhanced by an equally skilled narration. The result is a thorough and accessible work that should be considered in any examination of this increasingly troubled yet critical region. M.O.B. © AudioFile 2012, Portland, Maine
In this grim but insightful sequel to Descent into Chaos (2008), veteran Pakistani journalist Rashid's outlook is perfectly expressed by the title of that earlier overview. Not yet a failed state like Somalia, Pakistan is inching perilously close. The irresponsible elite class pays little taxes to an incompetent government whose citizens, long among Asia's most impoverished, are growing poorer. The army rules; civilian leaders defer to the military, handing over a lion's share of the budget which it devotes to high-tech arms, including a nuclear arsenal, directed at India. Hatred of India is a national obsession. Preparations for the inevitable war require a compliant Afghanistan on its opposite border, so Pakistan has always supported the Taliban, whose fanatic Islam seems more anti-India than the traditional, easygoing Afghan version. No fan of international terrorism, Pakistan happily accepted the avalanche of American money that followed 9/11 and provided valuable aid in tracking down al-Qaeda militants even within its borders. Although no secret, its continued support of the Taliban seemed a mystery to the Bush administration for years, and Pakistan remains impervious to American hectoring and threats to cut off aid. President Obama took office promising to fix matters, but he has proved a disappointment. Supporting the Taliban has brought Pakistan few benefits. Perhaps most disturbingly, a separate Taliban faction has started to unleash a vicious, destabilizing terrorist campaign. Rashid's concluding advice, although reasonable, requires too many leaders to come to their senses, but readers will welcome this insider's lucid, expert account of a disaster in the making.
