A distant region takes center stage: pulling up the roots of terrorism in South Asia. (The Shock...

Once Washington had established the linkage between the attacks of September 11 and Afghanistan, it confronted a cascading series of tasks in South Asia, each generating more and more demands on American military and diplomatic resources. To strike back at al Qaeda, which had sent the hijackers on their deadly mission, the United States had to confront the Taliban. Any action against al Qaeda or the Taliban required the assistance of Pakistan, inevitably entangling the United States in the complex India-Pakistan dispute. Nearly a year after the terrorist attacks, some of the origi