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First published in 2008 by Viking Penguin, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Rashid, Ahmed.
Descent into Chaos : the United States and the failure of nation building in Pakistan,
Afghanistan, and Central Asia / Ahmed Rashid.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.

eISBN : 978-1-4406-3104-7

1. Afghanistan—Politics and government—2001- 2. Pakistan—Politics and government—1988-
3. South Asia—Relations—United States. 4. United States—Relations—South Asia. I. Title.
DS371.4.R37 2008
954.05’3—dc22 2008002949

•
Set in Granjon
Maps by Jeffrey L. Ward

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This book is dedicated to my children

Rafael and Saara

and to their friends Mohammed, Ameera, Emile, Sasha, Mehvish, Graham,
Naveen, Arooj, Taimur, Mamdot, Rachel, Lucy, Shabaz, Charley, Zoha,
Sarah, Amar, Jamal, Dona, and many more.

May you build nations.

And in loving memory of Begum Qamar F. R. Khan.

If the Central Asian Society exists and is meeting in fifty or a hundred years hence, Afghanistan will be as vital and important a question as it is now.

—Lord Curzon, speaking at the annual dinner of the Royal Asiatic Society, London, 1908

Go massive—sweep it all up, things related and not.

—U.S. secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld, speaking to his aides on September 11, 2001, after the Pentagon was attacked