Pulling the rug out from under Al Qaeda.

• Author: Mancini, Francesco
• Position: "The Search for Al Qaeda: Its Leadership, Ideology, and Future" - Book review

The Search for Al Qaeda: Its Leadership, Ideology, and Future

Bruce Riedel

(Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2008), 224 pages.

Maybe it's his training as a CIA analyst. Maybe it's his frustration as an adviser to three U.S. presidents during a time period which has seen the rapid worldwide rise of the worldwide terrorist threat. The fact is that it is hard to be more doom-laden on Pakistan and Afghanistan than Bruce Riedel, terrorism expert and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Pakistan is the most dangerous place in the world he writes, where "every nightmare of the 21st century--terrorism, nuclear proliferation, the danger of nuclear war, dictatorship, poverty and drugs--come together in one place."' After reading his book, it is hard to disagree. To this list, one can add the appalling educational system, which often pushes parents to send their children to Pakistan's Islamic schools, the madrassahs, and the frail rule of law and corruption which "envelops Pakistan like a sheet of water." (2) On Afghanistan, Riedel is no less concerned. It is a failed state, undermined by a nepotistic and corrupt government with ineffective security forces, poor infrastructure and desperate socioeconomic conditions. NATO could thus lose the battle to convince Afghans that they are better off under the Western-backed administration than they would be with the Taliban. (3) Recent accusations of rigged elections do not help NATO's case. In this context, the Taliban, which were not defeated in 2001 but merely displaced to the Pakistani tribal areas, are regaining strength--thanks in part to the support of the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence directorate (ISI). (4)

In Riedel's analysis, what ultimately links Afghanistan and Pakistan is the core interest of his book, Al Qaeda. The global jihadist movement was born in Pakistan at the time of the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan. The Taliban, too, emerged in the Pakistani madrassahs, and "was nurtured by the country's intelligence service." (5) It was in Pakistan that Al Qaeda found refuge after the U.S. intervention in Afghanistan in late 2001, and it is from Pakistan that Al Qaeda continues its battle.

While most of Riedel's analysis has been presented elsewhere, he makes some fairly novel points in this book. (6) First of all, Afghanistan, he argues, is actually a centerpiece of Al Qaeda's strategy. He suggests that the ultimate aim of the 9/11 attacks was "to lure the United...