A Fragile Future

Starred review from April 14, 2008
Long overshadowed by the Iraq War, the ongoing turmoil in Afghanistan and Central Asia finally receives a searching retrospective as Rashid (Taliban
) surveys the region to reveal a thicket of ominous threats and lost opportunities—in Pakistan, a rickety dictatorship colludes with militants, and Afghanistan’s weak government is besieged by warlords, an exploding drug economy and a powerful Taliban insurgency. The author blames the unwillingness of American policymakers to shoulder the burden of nation building. According to Rashid, the U.S. invaded Afghanistan and subsequently refused to commit the forces and money needed to rebuild it; instead the U.S. government made corrupt alliances with warlords to impose a superficial calm, while continuing to ignore the Pakistani government’s support of the Taliban and the other Islamic extremists who have virtually taken over Pakistan’s western provinces. With his unparalleled access to sources—“I constantly berated Karzai for his failure to understand the usefulness of political parties”—Rashid is an authoritative guide to the region’s politics and his is an insightful, at times explosive, indictment of the U.S. government’s hand in the region’s degeneration.