There is no one better equipped than Bruce Riedel, who served most recent American presidents and helped shape US policy towards Pakistan, to give us a few insights. Riedel lays out the back story of the “deadly embrace” between Washington and Rawalpindi — when the two got together to counter the Soviet military occupation of Afghanistan at the end of 1979. Their joint effort in fanning the flames of religious extremism against the “godless Russian communists” was utterly successful in trapping the Russian bear and bleeding it by a thousand cuts.