When Afghan President Hamid Karzai, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, along with some 100 high-level Afghan and International delegations, met in Bonn for a conference on Afghanistan’s …
Af-Pak
The Bonn Conference: Can Afghanistan Be Saved Without Pakistan On Board?
It’s rarely a good sign these days when a summit gets referenced by the city that hosts it: Kyoto is now synonymous with the international community’s failures dealing with climate change; Oslo has become another watchword for …
Fareed Zakaria: How the U.S. Should Approach Pakistan
The discord underlying Washington’s troubled relationship with Islamabad reared its head again this week following the NATO bombing of Pakistani positions along the Afghan border. 24 Pakistani soldiers were killed in a strike for which NATO has expressed regret, but reports suggest NATO and Afghan forces had taken fire from Pakistani …
Afghanistan’s Loya Jirga: Substance or Hot Air?
‘Tis the season. The season of talks on Afghanistan, that is. Two weeks ago it was Istanbul, where Afghanistan’s neighbors met to discuss their roles in the country’s stability going forward. Early next month it will be Bonn, Germany, where the rest of the world will convene to ask, again, “whither Afghanistan?” And today, …
Quietly, the U.S. Embarks on an East Asia Offensive
If Americans were paying attention to matters of foreign policy over the weekend, it likely had to do with what was discussed at yet another farcical Republican debate, replete with wild distortions of reality and bald admissions of ignorance. What should have been more on the collective radar took place west of South Carolina — …
Satirical Video Attacks the Military-Religious Complex in Pakistan
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEpnwCPgH7g&feature=youtu.be]
The video above, posted by a band of 20-something Pakistani musicians in the country’s cultural capital Lahore, has become a viral hit in South Asia. “Aalu Anday” or “Potato and Eggs” starts innocently enough but soon launches into a tongue-in-cheek attack on the …
India-Pakistan Trade Normalized: Does It Matter?
When Pakistan granted India “most favored nation” (MFN) trading status yesterday (India did the same in 1995), Reuters called it “a major breakthrough that could bolster efforts to improve relations between the nuclear-armed rivals.” Some Indian officials agreed:
“It’s a very powerful step, and a welcome step in the right
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Haunted by the Ghosts of Afghanistan, Libya Asks NATO to Stay On
The request by Libya’s Transitional National Council for NATO to continue its military mission in the country despite the overthrow and slaying of Col. Muammar Gaddafi is a reminder that Libya may have some things in common with Afghanistan circa January 2002. There, the Taliban had been routed and driven out of power by a …
U.S. Iraq Withdrawal a Gift to Iran? No, the U.S. Iraq Invasion Was the Gift to Iran
Outlandish posturing on foreign policy matters is par for the course in a U.S. electoral season, but the claim that President Barack Obama will deliver Iraq on a plate to Iran by honoring the U.S. treaty obligation to withdraw American troops by New Year’s Day is worth closer scrutiny. It might be said that Obama’s critics, many of whom …
Should the U.S. Deem Pakistan a State Sponsor of Terrorism?
It seems not a week goes by without more accusations heaped upon Pakistan’s controversial military intelligence agency, the ISI. The shadowy agency, seen by many as an enabler and tacit ally of militant extremists and terrorist groups in South Asia, had just been in headlines following a Taliban assault on the U.S. embassy and …
The Endgame in Afghanistan: How Do We End the Proxy Wars?
When top U.S. military officer Adm. Mike Mullen described the Haqqani Network as a “a veritable arm of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence [spy] agency,” to the U.S. Senate on Thursday you could almost hear the ‘I told you so’ chorus echoing all the way from Afghanistan. Mullen accused the ISI of fighting a proxy war in …
More U.S.-Pakistan Kabuki Over Islamabad’s Terror Ties
Last week’s Taliban assault on the U.S. embassy and other prominent ministerial buildings in Kabul brought into relief once more the brazen conviction of militants in war-blighted Afghanistan as well as their considerable tactical capabilities in pulling off the raid. U.S. diplomats quickly pointed the finger at the al-Qaeda-linked …
The Assassination of Burhanuddin Rabbani: An End To Reconciliation?
In Afghanistan, the turban transcends tribe. It is worn by all ethnic groups, from the Tajiks and Uzbeks that dominate the north, to the Pashtuns who reside in the south. The Taliban wear turbans, but so do the tribal militias fighting them. Though out of fashion among the young and urban, it is still the symbol of a man’s honor …