Pakistan: The Eye of the Storm

Musharraf has become the first Pakistani leader in thirty years to dare to confront the country’s Islamic extremists. But can he succeed in controlling the forces that helped create the Taliban in Afghanistan and fuelled the bitter conflict in Kashmir? Will his army and intelligence agencies be able to tame the radical elements that they created and sustained? In this history of Pakistan from 1947 to the present, Bennett Jones decribes the many fault lines in Pakistani society. He assesses the role of the nationalists in the provinces, the feudal landlords in the countryside, and the bureaucratic elite in Islamabad and analyses the complex relationships between religion, regional politics, and the armed forces.