No nation is more critical to U.S. foreign policy than nuclear-armed
Pakistan. Wedged between India and Afghanistan, it is the second largest
country in the Islamic world. But with militant Islamists now expanding
their control over some of the country's most strategically sensitive
areas, there is a growing fear that Washington's most stolid ally in
South Asia--at least ostensibly--is unraveling, and perhaps is even on
the verge of collapse. With a dozen or so private Islamist armies, a
hundred or so nuclear weapons, and a dysfunctional government, Pakistan
is considered one of the most dangerous places on earth. Its
disintegration would pose an unthinkable threat to the United States and
the West, including the prospect of its nuclear arsenal being captured
by religious extremists.
In Pakistan, Mary Anne Weaver presents her personal journey through a
country in turmoil, reconstructing, largely in the voices of the key
participants themselves--General Pervez Musharraf, General Muhammed Zia,
and the assassinated former prime minister Benazir Bhutto--the legacies
now haunting Pakistan in the aftermath of the U.S.-sponsored jihad in
the 1980s in Afghanistan. Combining deep geopolitical intelligence with
a vivid portrait of a land--of its people, its mystery, and its
clans--Pakistan provides an essential background for anyone who wants
to understand the single most urgent problem facing the international
community.
