Zone of Crisis ― Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and Iran

The West Asian states of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and Iran have over the last few decades represented an arc of crisis. Characterized by fractured and dysfunctional political elites, fraught economic policies, and ideological struggles between the forces of authoritarianism and democratization, neo-fundamentalism and pluralism, they embody a mosaic of ethnicities. Amin Saikal, a distinguished Afghan-born scholar of international affairs, provides a sweeping new understanding of the complex contemporary political and social instability encompassing the region.

Critically comparing democratization and counter-insurgency efforts in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan, and examining both recent Western intervention and the history of foreign influence in the region, Saikal looks at how US entanglement has affected Pakistani and Iranian domestic politics and foreign affairs. How has this influenced the success or failure of the occupation in Afghanistan and Iraq? What solutions can be taken to ensure regional security? An informed and balanced overview on a troubled region, this book will fascinate general readers and prove essential reading for specialists.

Amin Saikal is Director of the Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies and Professor of Political Science at the Australian National University. He has been a visiting fellow at the Universities of Princeton and Cambridge, as well as at Sussex University's Institute of Development Studies. He has also been a Rockefeller Foundation Fellow in International Relations. He is the author of a number of works on the Middle East, Central Asia and Russia, including Islam and the West: Conflict or Cooperation? (2003); The Rise and Fall of the Shah: Iran from Autocracy to Religious Rule (2009) and Modern Afghanistan: A History of Struggle and Survival (I.B.Tauris, revised 2012).