The Foreign Service Journal, February 2012

F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 2 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 57 The Beginning of the End? The Unraveling: Pakistan in the Age of Jihad John R. Schmidt, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2011, $27, hardcover, 288 pages. R EVIEWED BY R ICHARD M C K EE For years now, the news from Pak- istan has been relentlessly confusing and grim: assassinations, suicide bomb- ings, army assaults on and murky deals with militants, U.S. drones killing ter- rorists and civilians, CIA agents “outed” and contractors running amok. Behind all the violence looms a doomsday threat: jihadi seizure of the Pakistani nuclear arsenal. Retired FSO John R. Schmidt has produced a superb guide for the per- plexed. The Unraveling: Pakistan in the Age of Jihad is a fluidly written analysis of the mounting weaknesses of this “improbable state.” His primary sources, well-con- nected Islamabad contacts he culti- vated as political counselor from 1998 to 2001, are impeccable. His survey of pervasive patron-client and clan rela- tionships is also insightful, though it draws mainly on secondary sources, presumably reflecting the security risks awaiting U.S. diplomats who venture into the countryside. Schmidt briskly furnishes curious observers with the background and context they need to understand how and why Pakistan evolved as it has since achieving independence in 1947. He cites the fundamental tension be- tween the vision of the nation’s founder, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, of a “homeland for the Muslims of the sub- continent” —which complements the tolerant Barelvi theology and Sufi practices of most Sunnis — and Presi- dent Zia ul-Haq’s imposition, during his 1977-1988 tenure, of laws embody- ing the harsh Deobandi interpretation of sharia. He also elucidates the harmful im- pact of the refusal by the feudal landowners who dominate politics to permit their income to be taxed. For instance, once the army has con- sumed the lion’s share of meager budget expenditures, little is left to fund public schools — a vacuum that is being filled by Deobandi madras- sas. More generally, underpaid Pak- istani bureaucrats demand bribes, alienating the poor and foreign in- vestors alike. Schmidt’s profound understanding of Pakistan’s military strategy is based on the views of retired generals whose confidence he gained. Because they remain obsessed with the perceived threat from India, most of the coun- try’s forces are deployed along the eastern border. As soon as the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989, the notorious Inter-Services Intelli- gence Directorate pivoted to infiltrate Pakistani jihadis into Kashmir. There, they collaborated with local insur- gents to pin down several Indian Army divisions. Schmidt argues persuasively that there are no ISI rogues: whether they’re training and equipping the Haqqani network militants who ha- rass U.S. forces in Afghanistan or the Pakistani terrorists who ambush In- dian troops in Kashmir, ISI officers B OOKS Schmidt elucidates the tension between the two competing visions of Pakistan’s future: inclusive and tolerant, or fundamentalist and harsh.