Pakistan on the Brink

The New York Review of Books by Ahmed Rashid | May. 15, 2009 (Special Report)

The army has always defined Pakistan's national security goals. Currently it has two strategic interests: first, it seeks to ensure that a balance of terror and power is maintained with respect to India, and the jihadis are seen as part of this strategy. Second, the army supports the Afghan Taliban as a hedge against US withdrawal from Afghanistan and also against Indian influence in Kabul, which has grown considerably. Containing the domestic jihadi ... Full Story »

Posted by Kaizar Campwala

See All Reviews »

View

Review

Derek Hawkins
4.0
 by Derek Hawkins - May. 15, 2009

The bleakest but most convincing assessment of the situation in Pakistan I've yet seen. Other journalists have cast the government as being in far greater control than Rashid does here. Excellent story, lots of concrete details, solid narrative.

Pakistan is close to the brink, perhaps not to a meltdown of the government, but to a permanent state of anarchy, as the Islamist revolutionaries led by the Taliban and their many allies take more territory, and state power shrinks. There will be no mass revolutionary uprising like in Iran in 1979 or storming of the citadels of power as in Vietnam and Cambodia; rather we can expect a slow, insidious, long-burning fuse of fear, terror, and paralysis that the Taliban have lit and that the state is unable, and partly unwilling, to douse.

See All Reviews »

Derek's Rating

Overall
4.0

Good
from 12 answers
Quality
4.0
Facts
4.0
Fairness
4.0
Sourcing
4.0
Style
4.0
Context
4.0
Depth
5.0
Enterprise
3.0
Relevance
4.0
Popularity
4.0
Recommendation
4.0
Credibility
4.0
More How our ratings work »