Fertile soil for terrorism

In this, Weaver also helps us understand why Pakistan's fate is so tied up, for better or worse, with Afghanistan's. Zia - as well as Zulfikar Ali Bhutto before him and every leader of Pakistan - lives in fear that ethnic Pashtuns throughout northwestern Afghanistan will take up arms and demand their own separate country, a so-called united Pashtunistan.

Some 30 years ago, when Pashtun leader Sardar Mohammed Daoud called on Pashtuns in Pakistan to join up with their brothers in Afghanistan, Bhutto invited about 5,000 fundamentalist Afghan Pashtuns to come to Pakistan. Bhutto armed and trained them, and sent them back to fight against Daoud in Afghanistan. "Six years before the Soviets invaded Afghanistan," Weaver writes, "the mujahideen had been born." There is also a strong argument to be made, Weaver later shows, that Zia, the CIA, and the ISI turned what would have been a nationalist struggle into a holy war. The same can be said of Kashmir today.

"Pakistan" is full of similarly surprising analysis that make even regular watchers of Central and South Asia want to consider things in a different light. Some of the information Weaver chooses in forming her narrative is perhaps common knowledge among people familiar with the region, but she fits the pieces together in a way that makes the greater puzzle far more thought-provoking and comprehensive.

Weaver also offers her readers exclusive glimpses into the enigmatic life of Benazir Bhutto, and interesting vignettes from the special relationship Pakistan has developed with Saudi Arabia. Weaver describes in droll detail how members of the royal family and elites from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Dubai, and Bahrain arrive in Pakistan each winter to hunt the houbara bustard, an endangered desert bird, with falcons. The sheikhs pay "between $10 and $20 million for a typical royal hunt," she reports, and later eat the birds for their supposed aphrodisiac qualities.

Weaver's book does not end on a tidy note. She analyzes the state of Al Qaeda, which looks more amorphous than ever before, more inspired by bin Laden than under his direction. One Islamic source considers bin Laden as much a hero as Abraham Lincoln, while a State Department official tells Weaver that Al Qaeda is more like a clearinghouse of logistical support than a central organization sending out orders for mayhem.

Most of Al Qaeda's leaders are still at large, and President Pervez Musharraf rejects reports that they and wanted Taliban fugitives have settled in Pakistan. The general who seized power in 1999 stands torn between a public that is swinging towards pro-Taliban Islamic parties and a military that is not pleased with the amount of room he has given to American forces.

Looking through Weaver's window, the war is not nearly over. Its guerrillas are just regrouping. Afghanistan may be prelude to a more volatile mix next door.

• Ilene R. Prusher writes for the Monitor from Istanbul.

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