Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia
by Ahmed Rashid
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Book Summary Information
Author: Ahmed RashidEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Published)
Format: Bargain Price
Published: 2000-02-29
ISBN: N/A
Number of pages: 288
Publisher: Yale University Press
Book Reviews of Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia
Book Review: An Interesting Monograph on the Taliban, But With Problems
Summary: 3 Stars
The interest in a book about the Taliban is obvious, and Ahmed Rashid brings certain undeniable strengths to the subject: he is a Pakistani journalist who has travelled extensively throughout Southeast Asia and conducted many interviews which make this a truly unique and indispensable book. I am not aware of any other history with the same access to sources that Rashid enjoys.
But the execution of the book is poor. First (and this isn't Rashid's fault), it is badly out-dated. It was published before the Taliban assassinated Ahmed Shah Massoud (which probably would have changed many of his predictions), before 9/11, and before the U.S.-led coalition invaded.
Second, the organization is odd, and the book gets tedious as a result. The first third is a military-political history of the Taliban from its first appearance in 1994 until its military actions in central Afghanistan between 1998 and 2000. The second section deals with religious and cultural aspects of life under the Taliban, in both Pashtun and non-Pashtun areas. These first two sections are both readable, informative and useful. The final section deals with foreign relations issues, such as regional competition over oil and gas pipelines, proxy wars fought by regional powers like Pakistan, Iran and Saudi Arabia, and problems like drugs and smuggling. This final section is poorly-written and arranged, so that the reader is constantly jumping around in chronology and geography (unless you already have some background in the geopolitics of the region, I imagine the rapid-fire discussion of names and places can quickly become impenitrable). In addition, Rashid's background as a journalist, which serves him so well in recounting the history and culture of the region, does little to aid him in his economic analyses and prognostication.
Rashid relies heavily on the usual cliches, such as traditional Afghan independence. For example, "Throughout Afghan history no outsider has been able to manipulate the Afghans, something the British and the Soviets learnt to their cost. Pakistan, it appeared, had learnt [sic] no lessons from history while it still lived in the past, when CIA and Saudi funding had given Pakistan the power to dominate the course of the jihad" (p. 185). Rashid makes no attempt to explain the apparent contradiction between his claim that Afghans resist outside influence, and his simultaneous claim that Pakistan heavily influenced the Afghans.
Indeed, Rashid (and many others) like to extrapolate from British and Soviet military defeats in the region a lesson about Afghan independence that is contradicted by all the other evidence. Throughout the colonial period, Afghan rulers played the British against the Russians for concessions, which was replayed again in the 20th century between America and the Soviets, each of whom aggressively competed with one another for development projects. Afghan leaders have been heavily influenced by Western thoughts (such as Amanullah's modernizing reform attempts, and heavy Soviet influence after the communist revolution), and Afghan citizens were educated in Soviet- and French-style universities, or in Saudi-funded and Pakistani-run madrassas. During and after the Soviet invasion, the mujahideen groups competed with each other for foreign equipment and training.
Finally, and most bizarrely, at the end of the book when Rashid proposes a plan to resolve the conflict (all badly out-of-date after 9/11), he inexplicably suggests that only further intervention by regional powers and especially by the U.S. is the only way to bring lasting peace and stability. Why such foreign influence is the best prescription by the end of the book, when he hectored Pakistan's naivetee only a few chapters before, must remain a mystery.
Despite its flaws, the book is valuable, and I recommend the first two-thirds as possibly the definitive work on the subject -- at least until Mullah Omar writes his memoirs.
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