The Scorpion's Tail: The Relentless Rise of Islamic Militants in Pakistan-And How It Threatens America »

The war in Afghanistan has raged on longer than any war in U.S. history, and far from suppressing the insurgency being waged by radical Islamic militants, it has led to ...

Publishers Weekly

Pakistani journalist Hussain (Frontline Pakistan) accurately describes the U.S.-led military action in central Asia not as a war in Afghanistan but "largely a Pushtun war" happening in Afghanistan and Pakistan. These distinctions provide the underpinning for a remarkably comprehensive and well-researched effort. He draws a line from Indian independence, when Islamists resisted the idea of a separate Muslim state in their desire to exert power within India, giving rise to a brutal trail of extremism within Pakistan that has fully flowered in the current conflict. Hussain argues that U.S. drone attacks have provided the Pakistani Taliban with a fresh crop of recruits--many of them middle-class and well-educated, as all the while the Pakistani army continues its "creeping coup," and al-Qaeda grows increasingly organized. He knows his subject matter and gives an unflinching and objective assessment of a problem that seems to grow larger and well beyond the scope of mere military action. (Nov.)