Pakistan on the Brink: The Future of America, Pakistan, and Afghanistan

by Ahmed Rashid, Arthur Morey (Read by)

Overview

An urgent, on-the-ground report from Pakistan—from the bestselling author of Descent Into Chaos and Taliban

Ahmed Rashid, one of the world's leading experts on the social and political situations in Pakistan and Afghanistan, offers a highly anticipated update on the possibilities—and hazards—facing the United States after the death of Osama bin Laden and as Operation Enduring Freedom winds down. With the characteristic professionalism that has made him the preeminent independent journalist in Pakistan for three decades, Rashid asks the important questions and delivers informed insights about the future of U.S. relations with the troubled region. His most urgent book to date, Pakistan on the Brink is the third volume in a comprehensive series that is a call to action to our nation's leaders and an exposition of this conflict's impact on the security of the world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781501280009
Publisher:	Brilliance Audio
Publication date:	08/11/2015
Edition description:	Unabridged
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 1.50(h) x 5.00(d)

About the Author

Ahmed Rashid, a Pakistani journalist based in Lahore, is the author of Descent Into Chaos and the #1 New York Times bestseller Taliban. He is a regular contributor to the Financial Times and the New York Times, and appears regularly on NPR, CNN, and the BBC World Service.

Editorial Reviews

…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.
—The Washington Post

Bruce Riedel

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.
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Publishers Weekly

"[Rashid] literally wrote the book on the Taliban and now has added a superb work on the future of Pakistan."

The Washington Post

"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."

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

"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."
— The Washington Post

"Insightful . . . Readers will welcome this insider’s lucid, expert account of a disaster in the making." — 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

Praise for Descent into Chaos

"Powerful." — Wolf Blitzer

"A clear-headed, sobering look at a country whose ties with the U.S. are becoming ever more frayed." — Publishers Weekly

“Rashid, a Pakistani journalist, is that most valuable of political analysts: both insider and outsider to the problems he studies. His book should be read by anyone pondering how America might stop widening Osama bin Laden’s pool of bomb-clad volunteers.” — Chicago Tribune

“Rashid’s book should be required reading for both presidential candidates, and anyone who wants to understand the jihadi problem.” — The Philadelphia Inquirer

"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."
— Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

"A clear-headed, sobering look at a country whose ties with the U.S. are becoming ever more frayed." — Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Excellent…Nobody tells the story of Musharaff’s duplicity better than Rashid.” — Time

“Ahmed Rashid has over the decades turned out to be something of a prophet in the region…[and] his fourth book [is] a caustic compendium of the mistakes by the Bush administration and, by extension, its regional allies, in tackling Islamic militancy.” — International Herald Tribune

From the Publisher

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.

Library Journal

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.

Kirkus Reviews