The Most Dangerous Place by Imtiaz Gul

From The Week of September 12, 2010

In North America, much has been made of the fact that the charitable response to the floods in Pakistan has fallen markedly short of the aid collected for the Haitian earthquake. Some have tried to dismiss this disparity by arguing for disaster fatigue, that a series of recent natural catastrophes, coupled with the 2008 financial crisis, have combined to empty the pockets of philanthropically minded Westerners. But Imtias Gul's account of the dramatic ways in which Pakistan is failing as a state convinces me that Westerners are wiser with their money than these people give them credit for.

Descent Into chaos is a chronicle not just of the Islamic insurgencies throughout Pakistan and the lengths to which the Pakistani government has had to be strong-armed by the West into fighting these insurgencies, it is the journal of a country slowly falling apart before our eyes. Too many corrupted agents in the ISI willing to work with and protect terrorists, too many crippled governments overcome by religious and militaristic bombardment, too weak an effort to create a civil society that might have knitted together a country born in religious discord. The result is a Pakistan fractured by tribal rivalries, populated by religious zealots, and agitated by strongmen who want to control their own little fiefdoms. We can call it a War on Terror if we wish, but the truth, as always, is simpler. Some people want power over other people. The lengths to which they are allowed to pursue that domination is dictated by the strength of the rule of law. A strong state captures and prosecutes strongmen, allowing citizens to believe in freedom and justice and to act accordingly. A weak state fails to capture or prosecute those men, allowing them to kill and pillage, fracturing society and degrading the people's belief in freedom.

This is where Imtiaz Gul's book excels. In covering the rebel commanders, the compromised agents, the threatened governors, the bloody battles and the forgotten people, he paints for his readers a portrait of failure, a failure which demonstrates the importance of the institutions of law we take so for granted in the West. Revealing and depressing in equal measure.(3/5 Stars)