Published in the Express Tribune
That militancy is the biggest near term threat Pakistan faces is obvious. What may not be obvious is that the roots of militancy go deeper than just Pakistan’s links with the Afghan Talibans or its support of various other militant groups. Read more »
The Stratfor ( a private US intelligence service) just released this report under the above title which is quite meaningful. Read more »
From Pravda , 29.08.2012
By Felix Imonti
Saudi Arabia has gone on the offensive against Iran to protect its interests. Read more »
By AARON DAVID MILLER
Foreign policy, including the use of military power, isn’t an end in itself. It consists of tools and instruments designed to achieve specific and hopefully well-thought-out ends. Those ends — let’s call them interests — are theoretically supposed to drive a country’s foreign-policy strategy. Sounds pretty simple, right? Read more »
Today a DAWN columnist wrote about the recently published book “Confront and Conceal” by David Sanger. The column misses some key points like Obama administration is dysfunctional and its information sources have often turned out to be completely wrong. The following review published in the New York Times is a more serious and objective (not reverential) critique of the book. Read more »
Occupy Seattle protesters, an off-shoot of the Occupy Wall Street movement, scuffle with police officers during a May Day rally and anti-capitalist march in Seattle. Read more »
The following article was recently published in a special supplement (May 10, 2012) titled “Emerging World Order” of the Financial Times. It is a must read for all thinking Pakistanis.
by Peter Shadbolt
If the African continent were to have its own modem-day Statue of Liberty, then Lady Liberty would probably be brandishing a mobile phone rather than a torch. Read more »
A growing rivalry between India, Pakistan and China over the region’s great
rivers may be threatening South Asia’s peace
Nov 19th 2011 | DELHI, DHAKA, ISLAMABAD AND SRINAGAR |
from the Economist
SONAULLAH PHAPHO has spent half a century picking a living from Wular lake high in Indian-controlled Kashmir. Today he is lucky if he scoops a fish or two out of the soupy mess. Read more »
The Telegraph
By Dean Nelson, South Asia Editor and Javed Siddiq in Islamabad
US forces are massing on the Pakistan border in eastern Afghanistan amid reports of an imminent drone missile offensive against fighters from the feared Haqqani Network, a Taliban faction which operates from safe havens in Pakistan’s North Waziristan Agency, Pakistan Army sources have confirmed. Read more »
From New Statesman, U.K.
by Mehdi Hasan – 07 October 2011
…here are ten things you should know.
Today is the tenth anniversary of the invasion of Afghanistan by the United States and its allies – including the UK – in the aftermath of the horrific attacks on 9/11.
It is a time to reflect and deliberate. Read more »
Published Business Recorder, Oct. 1, 2011
The government and the Army think they can make up for decades of blunders of an adventurous foreign policy by convening an All-Parties Conference. Imran Khan thinks we can tell America to mind its own business. Liberals think all the faults lie with Pakistani establishment. We thrive on half-truths and wishful thinking but we cannot formulate a serious strategy like that. Read more »
By Michael Brenner
Leon Panetta, newly-installed Secretary of Defense and former CIA head, made a tour of troubled hot spots in the Middle East. His stopovers in Kabul, Baghdad et al were punctuated by a series of barbed remarks aimed at leaders in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran. Read more »
Pakistani security officials escort American CIA contractor Raymond Allen Davis, center, to a local court in Lahore. Mr. Davis’ detention soured U.S. – Pak relations, and the fallout of the episode has affected subsequent American strategy in West Asia. File photo Read more »
From Daniel Serwer
The timeline for U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan is now clear: 10,000 troops out by the end of this year and 23,000 more out by the end of next summer. That will leave 67,000 troops, who, if all goes according to plan, will be withdrawn before the end of 2014, with a possible residual assistance force of unspecified size thereafter. That solves the military equation. But what about the political formula? Read more »
By Michael Cohen
For the first time in ten years, the light at the end of the tunnel of the U.S. war in Afghanistan is suddenly visible. To understand the implications of President Obama’s speech on Afghanistan this evening, perhaps the best place to start is not with what he said tonight in public, but what he allegedly said in private 18 months ago. Read more »
Secretary of the State Hillary Clinton recently said Pakistan needed to understand that anti-Americanism and conspiracy theories will not end its problems. I agree. But what would help? Many things to start with, but American disengagement most definitely will. Read more »
Time is running out fast. Pakistani Generals’ latest love affair with the United States that started after 9/11 seems to be heading for an acrimonious break up after exchanges of charges of betrayal. The US tolerated Pakistan’s duplicity (we cannot point to America’s because it is a super power and nor can we try Bush for war crimes) from day one Read more »
Courtesy: Centre for Research on Globalization, Montreal, Canada , By Dr. Paul Craig Roberts
Note: Dr. Paul Craig Roberts served as Assistant Secretary of Treasury for President Ronald Reagan. An economist by profession, Dr. Roberts studied at Berkeley and Oxford. Read more »
Osama is dead, Obama is enjoying a surge in popularity, Pakistani military high command is hiding in embarrassment, and the big question for Pakistan is where do we go from here? Read more »
Israel has relied on Egypt’s help to police the border with Gaza, above in 2006, but Egypt says it is planning to end its blockade.
From DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
CAIRO — Egypt is charting a new course in its foreign policy that has already begun shaking up the established order in the Middle East, planning to open the blockaded border with Gaza Read more »
It overshadowed a shake-up of Barack Obama’s top security team and the mowing down of nine American servicemen at Kabul airport by an irate Afghan. The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday Read more »
First published October 2010, Updated April 2011
Admiral Mike Mullen (first from left), the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Pakistani Army Chief Gen. Pervez Kayani (third from left) and next to him, the I.S.I. Chief Ahmed Shuja Pasha (then Major Gen. and Director General Military Operations) aboard the U.S. naval carrier Abraham Lincoln Read more »
From Robert M Cutler
MONTREAL – The bilateral Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline project is now officially suspended, as the IRIB (Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting) website on Sunday quoted Ali Reza Gharibi, the Iran Gas Engineering and Development Company’s managing director, Read more »
Pakistan’s polity is so polarized that the case of Raymond Davis has become an highly emotive issue with the ‘liberals’ and the ‘ghairat brigades’ taking positions Read more »
Egypt’s youth-led popular uprising shows change across the region need not be Islamist but has dealt a blow to the west and undercut leaders’ pursuit of lifetime power
By Roula Khalaf
Published: February 4 2011 Read more »
I attended a dinner last week in Singapore where I had a chance to listen to Ian Bremmer who is the President of Eurasia Group, the world’s leading political risk research and consulting firm. Ian is quite a likeable, almost cute looking guy. He did his Phd in political science from Stanford when he was not even 25 and now teaches at Columbia. He founded Eurasia Group with just $25,000 and grew it into the world’s pre-eminent political risk consulting firm. He appeared relaxed in an open neck shirt on a rather humid Singapore evening. Read more »
The following article by Bob Woodward was published today in the Washington Post. It is a combination of insights into Obama administration’s thinking, carefully- fed selected information and spin by the top U.S. officials. Read more »
The Express Tribune published an edited version on Sept. 29, 2010
Dr. Aafia Siddiqui may or may not have lost her sanity due to torture but is there an end to the madness of American military misadventures that have destroyed hundreds of thousands of homes of innocent civilians?
Think about this….
More than one trillion dollars and nine years later the alleged and self-confessed master mind of 9/11, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has not been convicted.Osama bin Laden, Ayman Al-Zahwari, and Mullah Omar have not been caught, dead or alive; Read more »
From the Wall Street Journal
By WILL CONNORS
Ghana and China signed project loans and another deal together totaling $15 billion, the latest in a string of Chinese investments on the continent.
The loans, coinciding with a six-day Beijing visit by the West African nation’s president, John Atta Mills, highlight China’s strong interest in resource-rich African countries such as Ghana. Ghana is preparing to tap massive oil fields that are expected to turn it into one of Africa’s biggest energy producers. Read more »
Intellectuals and respected Afghan professionals are convinced the west is prolonging conflict to maintain influence in the region
Daniella Peled {Note: This article has special significance given that Daniella is a Jewish journalist and a former editor of the Jewish Chronicle} Read more »
By Greg Miller
Washington Post Staff Writer
The U.S. military is reviewing options for a unilateral strike in Pakistan in the event that a successful attack on American soil is traced to the country’s tribal areas, according to senior military officials. Read more »
By David Ignatius
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Obama is not seeking a military victory over Taliban
How do wars end in the tribal society of Afghanistan? That’s one of the interesting questions that was highlighted by President Hamid Karzai’s visit to Washington last week. Read more »
By Peter Zeihan
April 28, 2010
In recent weeks, STRATFOR has explored how the U.S. government has been seeing its interests in the Middle East and South Asia shift. When it comes down to it, the United States is interested in stability at the highest level — a sort of cold equilibrium among the region’s major players that prevents any one of them, or a coalition of them — from overpowering the others and projecting power outward. Read more »
On assuming office, President Obama shifted US military action from Iraq to Afghanistan and then, more squarely, to Pakistan, where he claimed the terrorists responsible for 911 were hiding. In doing so, he tacitly acknowledged the nefarious character of the rationales of the Bush administration in invading Iraq, rationales that are now widely accepted as being cynical fabrications to wage a war that was planned well before the Trade Towers were destroyed. Read more »
The following story has been published by Washington Post today. Bear in mind that after eight and half years of the “War on Terror”:
1. We do not know anything about Osama bin Laden, 2. Mullah Omar is still at large, 3. Hakim ullah Mehsud is alive, 4. Mullah Radio (Fazullah) has escaped, and Pakistan’s miliatry is getting advanced version of F16s. It should be noted that the Pakistan’s Army chief had stated on March 25, 2010 in Washington that the military was willing to forgo its requests for hardware to ensure that Pakistan’s energy and economic needs were met. Read more »
From Inter-City Press By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, April 15 — In investigating the murder of Benazir Bhutto, the UN Commission of Inquiry lead by Chile’s Heraldo Munoz was urged to interview Condoleezza Rice, Hamid Karzai and the intelligence chiefs of the UAE and Saudi Arabia. Read more »
By Daniel Dombey and Tobius Buck
The Financial Times, April 13, 2010
The world clustered around Barack Obama on Monday – with one very notable exception. Leaders of some 40 countries, from Argentina and Armenia to China and India, gathered in Washington to attend the nuclear security summit convoked by the US president. Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, stayed away. Read more »
As Henry Kissinger once rightly observed, it is often more dangerous being America’s ally than its enemy.
By Eric Margolis Read more »
