Book Review - Descent Into Chaos

I am posting another of my Goodreads book reviews, this one on a book that discredits thoroughly almost every assumption and move that the US has made in the last 12 years in the Middle East, particularly in regards to Pakistan.

Descent into Chaos: The United States & the Failure of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan & Central Asia by Ahmed Rashid
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

It took me a long time to read this book, mainly because of all the names of people and places. It is a complex and very detailed look by a respected Pakistani journalist at the mess that is Pakistan and Afghanistan. That it was largely due to the incredibly inept bungling of the Bush administration I knew before reading the book, but just how culpable, how willingly the administration chose the wrong road each and every time and how thoroughly they played into the hands of al Qaeda and the Taliban was something of a revelation.

Another fact that came out with glaring clarity was just how thoroughly the Bush administration lied to the American people - while Rumsfeld was praising the ability of the warlords to govern Afghanistan and Bush was extolling the wonderful aid Musharaff giving the US in tracking down al Qaeda they were both taking American aid money and using it to clamp down and solidify their own power in the first case or feed the money through the Pakistani army and the ISI intelligence service to the Taliban. The US would have been much better off (and closer to dismembering al Qaeda) if they had invaded Pakistan at the outset, but this would have taken too long since they had something resembling a real army and Bush would have been delayed in his blood lust to invade Iraq.

Telling as well is the insider's view of the lack of coodination in NATO between the countries, and the way their reluctance to get involved at all played out in scenario after scenario where NATO countries tried to do at least some nation-building/rebuilding but a disinterested US turned its back (and closed its wallet) to any meaningful recovery activities for the country's infrastructure or the government.

The author has personal relationships with many of the top players in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and brings a depth of knowledge about the ethnic strife and politics of the area that can only can come from living it, and watching your part of the world being savaged by faraway countries with more money and guns than common sense.