Descent into Chaos: The world's most unstable region and the threat to global security [Paperback]

Ahmed Rashid is a Pakistani journalist who has written many books and articles about developments in Central Asia, including Afghanistan and Pakistan itself. His book on the Taliban (Taliban: Islam, Oil and the New Great Game in Central Asia) was much read after the terrorist attacks of '9/11', and as a result, his newest publication titled "Descent Into Chaos" has been a bestseller.

Rashid is very well informed about the region and sheds great light on the complicated matter of its political and economic contradictions. Moreover, he does so in a readily accessible, journalistic style which will enable many readers to learn a lot in a short time about this war-torn part of the world. He gives a short history of Afghanistan as well as Pakistan, explains the interrelatedness of the two countries through the strategy of the Pakistani military class to support the islamists, points out the Pashtun prevalence in both countries, describes the connections with the rest of Central Asia (particularly Uzbekistan), and finally deals with the extensive American-led Western involvement in the area including the current occupation. In addition, he provides much critical commentary. Some of this is good, and some of it is not. The main lines of the book are very worth listening to. The main lesson is that it is not worthwhile to invade a country like Afghanistan, no matter how bad its current government, if you're not going to be willing to sacrifice a great deal of funds and time as well as ground troops in rebuilding it in one's own image. Another important lesson is that one cannot deal with Afghanistan without dealing with Pakistan, which means the military class there must give up its dictatorial rule under pretext of fighting India, and that the 'tribal' areas of Pakistan must be decolonized and brought under the domain of Pakistan's regular laws and political structures. Only a serious democratization in Pakistan can really combat islamism in the 'tribal' areas, and this in turn is the prerequisite for combating islamism in Afghanistan as well as Kashmir. Many people will not like Rashid's support for 'nation-building', but surely he is right in stating that if one is going to undertake regime change in countries with terrible tyrannical governments, it immediately becomes the responsibility of the regime changer(s) to assure that country's reconstruction. Otherwise, the benefits will be minimal and the destruction and chaos maximal. He also emphasizes the important lesson that although islamism is not at all popular in either Afghanistan or Pakistan, its latent support comes from its ability to create stability and legitimate rule in areas wracked by warlords and clan systems and where no central government operates, or where the central government is too corrupt and negative to be supportable. This means that Western support for tyrannical secular governments such as that of Islam Karimov in Uzbekistan, with the aim of combating islamism in this manner, is always counterproductive. The same goes for the current policy of using warlords as the main political leaders at regional level in Afghanistan, which will surely lead to trouble in the future.

There are however also serious flaws in his book. Precisely because Rashid knows many of the people involved, he has many personal preconceived notions about the leading figures involved, which distort the narrative. For example, Ahmad Shah Massoud and Hamid Karzai are both depicted as generally 'good' figures, which can surely be doubted (in fact Massoud is explicitly considered a heroic patriot, in exactly those terms). Rashid also constantly involves himself in the narrative and puffs up his own importance in these affairs, including through his friendship with the well-known American specialist in Afghan affairs, Barnett Rubin. In all these things he works precisely the opposite way from the excellent approach of Robert Fisk, who always relativizes his own importance and describes the individual figures through their actions and what they tell him, without needing to give his own commentary on how patriotic they are or not. Finally, the book is fairly repetitive and seems padded out, with a lot more detail involved than is strictly needed for a journalistic overview of the recent events. It is all the more dubious for this reason that his use of sources is arbitrary and ineffective - he only uses footnotes randomly, and many statements and even quotations are entirely unsourced, even if they are remarkable. In this way, Rashid's superficiality and partisanship get in the way of what is an informative and useful narrative.

Reading Ahmed Rashid's 'Decent Into Chaos' after two books on two other key players in the war on terror (Saudi Arabia and Iran), this almost read like part 3 of a trilogy; not only in understanding the real bases of global Islamic terror, but where the `show' is likely headed next.

The book is divided into 4 parts: `9/11 and War', `The Politics of the 9/11 World', `The Failure of Nation Building' and `Descent Into Chaos'. These sections are further sub-divided into chapters. I found the first two, and last sections, to be the most engaging.

The difficulties so far in the war on terror are described through the political framework of Afghanistan. First, the life of Afghanistan, after the US pullout at the end of the Soviet invasion, all the way through to 9/11, then post-9/11 through the attempted freeing of the country from the Taliban; then, through the attempted democratic political process which followed.

As ever, Rashid's expertise of his home country is second to none. Pakistan's role in creating al-Qaida and the Taliban is explained, Pakistan's continual escape from international condemnation and gaining the upper-political-hand in Afghanistan, sponsoring terror organisations - while the US was in neighbouring Afghanistan fighting those same organisations - has to be read to be believed. On the other hand what doesn't have to be read to be believed is the American administration's strategic blunders in Afghanistan, as is all too painfully evident. I felt the conclusion was a little short on substance considering the book is named after the last part of this book, but this is probably just anti-climax considering the revelations I had just read.

Recently, after having gone through a spate of books written in foreign languages and then translated into English, Rashid's phrasing and style was a joy to behold. However, in stark contrast to the intelligent analysis of the goings on in Pakistan and Afghanistan, are the descriptions of the US administration. Rashid possesses an extreme anti-American bias which does become tiresome after a while. This is probably due to him having simply used other writers such as Bob Woodward and Noam Chomsky. America bungles and hesitates to put troops on the ground, not because it is attempting to apply lessons from the Vietnam conflict or lessons from the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (which has become known as the Soviet's Vietnam), but because America is an `empirical colonist.'

Whatever reputation Rashid acquired in the upper echelons of international diplomacy with Taliban, he's sure to have squandered it with the introduction to this book alone. Whatever his reasons for his anti-American outlook, it is bizarre that a book intended as a wake-up call and plead for the US to rebuild Afghanistan (not to mention the whole of Central Asia) should descend into polemic and other conspiracy theories which do him no favours.

An example of this contrasting viewpoint is when Rashid describes a Pakistani operation in southern Waziristan, and his descriptions in the following chapter of the US:

Following a fatwa by Ayman Al Zawahiri (al-Qaida's number 2) decreeing the assassination of president Musharaf, Pakistan finally became convinced of the need for action against the Taliban, allegedly. What followed was an operation into the region; Two weeks of fighting later - with helicopter gunships, fighter jets and tanks, along with 50,000 refugees from surrounding villages - the total lack of coordination between the Pakistani ISI and the Frontier Corps on the ground seemed strange. US officials knew the ISI had deep knowledge of the enemy's armaments and numbers, yet none of this intelligence seemed to have reached the forces on the ground. US officials in Kabul and Islamabad wondered if the failed operation was due to a lack of coordination or deliberate...

Turn the page after this, and Rashid describes a decision which was a step backwards for mankind. Not the chaos and misery the ISI inflicted upon its own people in the previous chapter, nor beheadings shown on al-Qaida websites, nor the instructions by the Taliban that young boys should kill their parents if they refuse to let them become martyrs, but because George W Bush did not grant al-Qaida or the Taliban POW status.

A useful clue for the reasons for this bias is Rashid's claim that radical Islamic group Hizb ut-Tahrir are non-violent. He also explains that Hizb ut-Tahrir shares many tenets with Wahabism. This is a bit like saying although Hitler shared many beliefs with Mussolini; Hitler wasn't as bad because he was a vegetarian. This reveals Rashid is more than likely a member of Hizb ut-Tahrir and probably goes a long way towards explaining why he does not reveal anything about Pakistani/Saudi relations, which would've given this book added depth and a new dimension. You will not see Rashid talk about the single greatest obstacle in solving the War On Terror: Pakistan's nuclear weapons.

Amazingly enough, in the context of the war on terror, it seems that the condemnation of the Taliban or al-Qaida is enough for those in the British establishment to `prove' oneself as a moderate Muslim. No wonder MI6 unknowingly employed al-Qaida's top man in Europe for intelligence gathering...

While this book will fill many peoples' knowledge gap in this area, due to the bias, it is deliberately limited. This makes it long on details, long on dispair but short on answers.

However, I still feel the information on Pakistan is brilliant and the analysis eye-opening. I would've liked some proper insights as to some of the Bush administrations' seemingly bizarre decisions, however until something more rounded comes along, I have rated this a 4 star read.

Ahmed Rashid is a journalist, and a good one at that. He is courageous, and the reader cannot help but marvel that he has not met an "untimely end" due to his criticism of various leaders. From his base in Lahore, Pakistan he has had a vital "South-central Asian" perspective on many of the events that have become of essential importance to the United States, and to a large extent, the Western world, in the "post 9/11 era." His "beat" is Afghanistan, the five central Asian "'stans," India, and his native country. His book Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia, written in 2000, became essential reading for American policy makers a year later.

Rashid's book is an essential compliment to Junger's book WAR. Junger covers the combat conducted over a year's period, by one unit of the 173rd Airborne Brigade, in a remote valley near the Pakistani border. To quote Junger: "The men know Pakistan is the root of the entire war, and that is just about the only topic they get political about." Rashid covers in detail the internal political situation in Pakistan, most tellingly, the "double game" that has been played, and continues to be played by the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI), which is Pakistan's intelligence agency. Numerous members of the agency openly support the Taliban, while paying lip service to the Americans that they are fighting them. One of the most astonishing vignettes told by Rashid is dubbed "the Great Escape." It occurred on November 15, 2001, when there was an imposed lull in the fighting at Kunduz, so that Pakistani planes could fly in and evacuate members of the ISI, and untold number of Taliban, to Pakistan, thwarting the efforts of the United States, and the Northern Alliance, in the very early days of the ground combat in Afghanistan post 9-11. Rashid documents again and again how the American leadership turns a blind eye to the ISI's double-dealing, and continues to support General Musharraf's dictatorial rule of Pakistan, and his double-dealing with the reactionary forces of Islamic fundamentalism.

But there is much else besides. Rashid knew Hamid Karzai before he become Afghanistan's current leader. He gave a concise account of his background, and the logic behind his selection by the Americans. Karzai is a Pashtun counterweight to the Northern Alliance. His coverage of "the Stans" is incisive. Each ruled by a dictator, who milk the Americans for rights to bases. Graft and corruption are the norm; the ruling elite become fabulously rich, which only helps fuel an Islamic fundamentalist backlash in each of these countries. Telling, Rashid echoes a variation of a once famous question in the American `50's: Who lost Uzbekistan? Rashid also provides vital explanations of what he terms "Al Qaeda bolt-hole," which are their sanctuaries in the Northwest frontier provinces. Is Osama Bin Laden still there? Rashid draws no definitive conclusions, but the continued lack of real interest in bringing him to justice, almost 10 years after 9/11 remains disturbing.

Rashid frequent travels to the West provide an opportunity to report on the Western leaders as well. He renders scathing indictments of the American "neo-con" leadership, Cheney, Rumsfeld et al., and how they blew a truly wonderful opportunity in Afghanistan by refusing to engage in even modest "nation building," a term anathema to them, and their almost total focus of Iraq, which created the conditions for the Taliban to become resurgent.

Is imitation the sincerest form of flattery? A telling anecdote is on the author's website, easily reached via Google. George Bush, in his book Decision Points lifted Rashid's account (without attribution) of the meeting between Karzai and a Tajik warlord on Dec. 22, 2001

But I did have some problems with the book, and found it a bit of a slog to finish. Journalists, to generalize somewhat, seemed inclined to produce "cut and paste" books from their work. The book could use much tighter editing; for example, three times in three pages the reader is told that East Pakistan became Bangladesh in 1971. The history of Pakistan, as related in Chapter Two, has a "stream of consciousness" style about it. And there are numerous misspellings, the type that even a reasonable publisher would have caught via "spell-check." Rashid clearly has his opinions on various individuals, for example, "brutal," "corrupt", and renders them, but sometimes without providing the reader with his basis. Another reviewer, Timothy Graczewski, calls the author out on his statements about Toyota Landcrusiers travelling 150 mi/hr in the open desert. Did he mean kilometers? Doesn't matter. Anyone who has travelled in the open desert knows, that, save for perhaps the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, you cannot travel that fast due to the wadis, and innumerable dry water courses that would destroy the suspension on any vehicle.

Overall though, a vital, essential book. It was published just before President Obama took office. With the President's increased focus on this area, including augmented troop levels, Rashid's account is more important than ever, and will almost certainly be the most comprehensive view of the area that will be available in the West. 4-stars.

(Note: Review first published at Amazon, USA, on January 07, 2011)