The Book Review by Ishfaq (M.Phil)

The Pakistan on THE BRINK: The Future of Pakistan, Afghanistan and West

(Written by: Ahmed Rashid)

In this book assert that Mr. Ahmed Rashid, who wrote many significant books and one of Pakistan’s premier journalist and analysts. He well knows the region’s pressures better than most. He literally wrote the book on the Taliban and now has added a superb work on the future of Pakistan. Many Nations deem the world’s most dangerous that “Pakistan on the Brink” depicts a nation with a severe socioeconomic crisis. The political leadership that has neither the courage nor the will to carry out essential reforms and is building the fastest-growing nuclear arsenal on the globe. The Pak-US relationship also going to meltdown and Mr. Rashid rightly contends, with both sides to blame in his book “Pakistan on the Brink: The Future of America, Pakistan, and Afghanistan”. The relationship is so bad that the United States and Pakistan are near of going to war, Mr. Rashid writes. Much of the growing hostility between the two countries can be traced to the U.S. raid that killed Osama bin Laden and where Rashid begins his tale. It did not improve trust for the United States to discover that the al-Qaeda leader was hidden, less than a mile from Pakistan’s Military Academy and also running his global terror network. According to the Washington Post reporting on the material found in his hideout and was in regular communication with other jihadists, including the Afghan Taliban leader like Mohammad Omar. His hideout had been built by a contracting firm often used by the ISI.

Rashid argues that there is a complex situation regarding terrorists organizations operating today in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Al-Qaeda gets the most attention in the United States, but it is a relatively small organization in a much larger network. The Lashkar-i-Taiba, the militant Islamist terror group has a much bigger and very overt presence in Pakistan. It routinely holds large demonstrations in Pakistan’s cities that attract tens of thousands of supporters.

Its leader, Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, openly mourned Osama bin Laden death last May and called for revenge on US. He and Osama bin Laden had been close partners in terror stretching back to the 1980s, when the Saudi helped fund the creation of Lashkar-i-Taiba. The two men were in communication until the death of Osama bin Laden at Abbottabad. While Al-Qaeda may be on the defensive thanks to U.S. drones and Navy SEALs, Rashid writes that its much larger allies are blooming and widening the territory for its operations. Pakistan is the epicenter of this jihadist organization and Rashid also made blame against the Pakistan Army and ISI. As he notes, the obsession of Pakistani generals with India has been the driving force behind this creation, which is increasingly out of control. But as he argued that the Army has not changed its fundamental approach of supporting jihad. In this book he said that as we know that the Mumbai plot, for example, was also led by Lashkar-i-Taiba, but funded by the ISI and inspired by Al-Qaeda. The Pak-US Nationals, who supported to plan the attack, David Headley, has confessed in court to how this deadly cocktail was put together.

Mr. Rashid focus on that how the US has tried to defeat jihadist extremists and work with Pakistan to build stability in South Asia. President Obama embarked on a strategic engagement with Pakistan, when he entered the Oval Office just months after the Mumbai massacre. There was also a new elected civilian government in Islamabad led by Asif Ali Zardari and the husband of Benazir Bhutto. Who was killed in an al-Qaeda plot abetted by the ISI in 2007, added by Rashid. Zardari promised to put an end to Pakistan’s policy of taking both sides in the war on terror and to go after the jihadists. As Rashid expressively describes, it has not turned out that way. Zardari has never had any control of the ISI. He was clueless about Osama bin Laden’s hideout in Abbottabad and out of the loop on Mumbai. The generals want to get rid of him, but he is holding on to his office in spite of their plots. The tension has always existed between Obama’s engagement strategy and the unilateral U.S. strikes on the al-Qaeda infrastructure in Pakistan. U.S. drones that violate Pakistani sovereignty every day have created a backlash in the country and Pakistani enmity reached an upsurge after American commandos found Osama bin Laden. The Act of US forces got three votes out of four Pakistanis to opposed the raid. Pakistan’s see the US as an egotistical superpower that views their country as a killing field. Americans see Pakistan as two-faced and dangerous. Both are right, Rashid also highlights the strains within Obama’s camp and the infighting among his lieutenants. Dealing with Pakistan was always going to be tough and internal trouble has made it all the harder.

Rashid argues that Obama and his team bear the majority of blame for the aggravation in Pakistan because of their failure to work together, lack of clarity and contradictory statements. Much of the resistance arose around the late envoy Richard Holbrooke, who Rashid says was “hated” and “snubbed” by the White House. But he overstates the impact of the inner White House tensions. Pakistan’s problems are mostly a result of Pakistani intrigues and conspiracies. The United States has often made the situation worse by backing generals over civilians, but as long as Pakistan’s blame someone else for their troubles, the country will only goes further toward the brink. Obama was planning to visit Pakistan in 2011, instead that it was the worsen year of U.S.-Pakistan relations. The collapse occurred for many reasons, but the deadliest blow was the realization that high-value target No. 1 that was Osama bin Laden, was not holed up in a cave but in a villa near a Military Academy, operating as the chief executive of a global terror empire. Until we know, who was helping him hide in the heart of the Pakistan’s National Security System, the U.S.-Pakistan relationship will only deteriorate further.