Ahmed Rashid – Pakistan on the Brink
VIEW EVENT DETAILSWhat are the possibilities — and hazards — facing the U.S. as it withdraws from Afghanistan and as it reviews its long engagement in Pakistan? This is one of the crucial questions that Ahmed Rashid — Pakistan’s preeminent journalist — takes on in Pakistan on the Brink, a follow-up to his acclaimed Descent into Chaos. Rashid correctly predicted that the Iraq war would have to be refocused into Afghanistan and that Pakistan would emerge as the leading player through which American interests and actions would have to be directed.
Now, as the Obama administration and the Pakistan government are redrawing their relationship, Rashid will be joined in conversation with New York Times columnist Bill Keller to discuss these critical changes.
Mr. Rashid was the Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia correspondent for the Far Eastern Economic Review for 22 years. He writes for the Daily Telegraph, the International Herald Tribune, the New York Review of Books, BBC Online, The Nation, and academic and foreign affairs journals and appears regularly on international TV and radio such as CNN and BBC World Service. A scholar of the Davos World Economic Forum and a consultant for Human Rights Watch, he has addressed numerous universities and think tanks, and at the invitation of U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, he became the first journalist to address the U.N. General Assembly on the commemoration of the signing of the Bonn agreement.
Mr. Keller was formerly the Executive Director of the New York Times from 2003 through 2011. He previously held positions as Foreign Editor and Bureau Chief in Johannesburg, South Africa, having joined The Times in 1984. Mr. Keller wrote The Tree Shaker: The Story of Nelson Mandela, published in January, 2008, by Kingfisher, and his article, “The Pakistanis Have a Point,” recently appeared in the New York Times Sunday Magazine.
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Excerpt: Ahmed Rashid's Preface to Pakistan on the Brink
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