The mainstream media are divided between two ways of interpreting the fall of Kabul. For some, the Democrats are cowards and the departure from Afghanistan discourages the allies. For others, they have played well and placed a thorn in the side of the Russians and the Chinese. These two views correspond to the traditional paradigm of the American Empire. But...
There are few things in this kaleidoscopic world of ours that we can count on – for predictability, for fixity of outlook, for unswerving resistance to the vicissitudes of life. The American foreign policy community is one of them. They reliably react to stunning events in the world with reiteration of what they have been saying for years and decades. They d...
Let us return to our narrative. By 2001, Washington had become intoxicated and convinced itself of an imminent shortage of energy sources. The National Energy Policy Development (NEPD) Task Force, chaired by Dick Cheney, had heard from all the private and public officials responsible for hydrocarbon supply. Having met the secretary-general of this body, whic...
What is going on? Are we simply observing a perpetuation of the strategy to ensure American global dominance first spelled out in the notorious Wolfowitz memo of March 1992? Is there a convincing case to be made that a facsimile project has been followed by every President since – qualified or contradictory rhetoric notwithstanding? Has the lust for revenge ...
Foreign policy without strategy is like trying to make bricks without straw. It crumbles into fragments none of which serve any useful purpose. This is especially true for a great power – one that presumes to master the affairs of the globe. Yet, this is exactly the state-of-affairs which the United States has created for itself. Disjointed and incoherent ar...
Afghanistan is showing the United Arab Emirates the downside of being a haven for deposed leaders and exiled politicians whose wealth is reportedly parked without question in Emirati financial institutions. The latest arrival in the UAE, former Afghan president Ashraf Ghani, denied this week allegations by Afghanistan’s ambassador to Tajikistan, Zahir Aghbar...
Afghanistan when it marched triumphantly into Kabul on August 15. The Latin phrase veni, vidi, vici (I came, I saw, I conquered) attributed to Julius Caesar following his victory at the Battle of Zela in 42 BC may well apply to the Taliban’s victory in Afghanistan. In barely a month, Taliban’s 70,000-odd trained fighters and followers overran the 3,00,000 st...
15 August, 2021 will be etched indelibly as a golden day in the history of Kashmir. On this day victory of good over evil was celebrated with great aplomb throughout the Valley. People came out in large numbers to express their love for their country on the occasion of the 74th Independence Day. In an elegantly organised event, Lt Gov Manoj Sinha dedicated...
Over the past decades world ocean trade has expanded almost exponentially as major manufacturing outsourcing from USA and European corporations has blossomed under the advent of economic globalization. The result has been that Asia, most especially China, has become the essential manufacturing source for everything from iPhones to antibiotics and...
On February 26, 2019, a dozen Mirage 2000 fighter jets of the IAF crossed the Line of Control (LoC) and penetrated to deep inside Pakistan to carry out a pre-dawn strike at the Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) terrorist camps in Balakot in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province and in Muzaffarabad and Chakothi in POK. Operation Bandar, as the Balakot mission was called, was...
Abu Omar Khorasani was taken from Kabul’s Pul-i-Charkhi prison and unceremoniously shot (sometime last week). The first and only person to have been executed since the Taliban gained full control of Afghanistan, Mr. Khorasani was the head of the Islamic State in South Asia until he was arrested by government forces last year.
The precise circumstances of h...
Having taken control, the Taliban want the world to believe that they have become more pragmatic and inclusive in the twenty years since they brutally ruled Afghanistan. Whether true or not will be determined by the group’s attitudes towards jihadists and other militants, ethnic and religious minorities, women, and governance. To be fair, the Taliban despite...
Taliban advances in Afghanistan shift the Central Asian playing field on which China, India and the United States compete with rival infrastructure-driven approaches. At first glance, a Taliban takeover of Kabul [August 15-Ed] would give China a 2:0 advantage against the US and India, but that could prove to be a shaky head start. The potential fall of the U...
In the changing political scenario where the Soviet Union emerged as the second superpower after Second World War; China and an independent India were eventually to be ruled by communists and nationalists, creating a client state to serve the interests of colonial power in South Asia and the Middle East with its newly found vast oil reserves was thought to b...
Among many other unprecedented political and geo-strategic developments in the wake of the decolonizing process in the 20th century, the creation of a religious state by dividing India is one of the unique phenomena. The historical context of the “great game” of the 19th century and the use of religion in the making of a client state by a colonial power is t...
Just last month, a Chinese national was shot and wounded in Karachi, when two men opened fire on the car that was carrying them. This attack comes just two weeks after the horrific bombing of a bus transporting Chinese engineers who were working at the Dasu hydropower project in the Kohistan district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, which led to the loss of n...
On March 6, 2020, the Union government set up a Delimitation Commission headed by retired Supreme Court judge, Ranjana Prakash Desai. Among its many responsibilities was the mandate to carry out a Delimitation exercise in the Union Territory (UT) of Jammu and Kashmir. In accordance with the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Bill, 2019, the number of Assembly ...
The hasty withdrawal of the US and its allies from Afghanistan, its impact on the neighboring and Middle Eastern states, and the possible scenarios of the situation are being vigorously commented on by the media in the Arab world. Most authors call this move a failure of Washington’s policy. According to the South Al-Iraq website, the US has brought nothing ...
The World Bank issued a stark warning in its 2018 outlook for the Saudi economy. “The Kingdom likely faces a looming poverty problem,” the bank said. The bank has since noted in its 2019 and 2020 outlooks that “while no official information is available on poverty, identifying and supporting low-income households is challenging.” Dependent on world oil price...
On July 29, according to the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO, a unit of the British Navy), there was an attack in the Arabian Sea on the oil tanker Mercer Street, associated with Israeli billionaire Eyal Ofer, killing two crew members, one British and one Romanian. The incident occurred northeast of Masirah Island of Oman about 300 kilometers...
The forever-head of the US NIAID, Tony Fauci, has repeatedly demanded that the public “trust the science” as he shifts his own science opinion from one position to another. What is never mentioned in mainstream media in the West or almost anywhere in the world is the scientific record of the major global vaccine making pharmaceutical giants. In short, it is ...
The aphorism, the ‘road to hell is paved with good intentions’, may well apply to the Gotabaya government’s disastrous performance, despite its claims of acting in good faith. President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, hailed as the ‘doer’ and ‘Terminator’ (for wiping out the LTTE insurgents), continued to falter in delivering the “vistas of prosperity and splendour” he ...
When the Soviet Union collapsed, the US elite believed that a period of commerce and prosperity would follow the Cold War. However, a section of the military-industrial complex imposed rearmament in 1995, followed by a very aggressive imperialist policy in 2001. This faction, which identifies itself with the “Continuity of Government” group, stood ready to t...
Boasting an almost 1,000-kilometer border with Iran and a history of troubled relations between the Iranians and Sunni Muslim militants, including the Taliban, Afghanistan could become a bellwether for the future of the rivalry between the Islamic Republic and Saudi Arabia. Had the United States withdrawn from Afghanistan several years earlier, chances would...
On August 5, 2019, the Parliament of India through a valid constitutional process abrogated the draconian Article 370 and Article 35A of the Constitution that had created roadblocks in the seamless integration of the State of Jammu and Kashmir with the rest of India. Alongside, Parliament also bifurcated the State into two Union Territories of Jammu-Kashmir ...
While Bassma Kodmani, the spokeswoman for the “Syrian opposition” - and companion of former French secret service director Jean-Claude Cousseran - had declared that “the regime is incapable of organizing a presidential election [and that] this is proof that it is a dictatorship,” a new electoral code was adopted - in accordance with Western standards - and t...
Texas exemplifies the American ‘heartland.’ The term has been in use for only a couple of decades, but is now common currency in reference to geography and the locus of the national soul. Why should this honor be conferred on ‘fly-over’ states? Certainly not for historical reasons. There is a much stronger case to be made for Massachusetts (Plymouth Rock, Bo...
The United States and Iran seem to be hardening their positions in advance of a resumption of negotiations to revive a 2015 international nuclear agreement once Iranian President-elect Ebrahim Raisi takes office in early August. Concern among supporters of the agreement to curb Iran’s nuclear program which former US President Donald J. Trump abandoned in 201...
In May 2013, Nato distributed a report to its members indicating that the population supported President el-Assad at 70%, 20% support the rebels and 10% have no opinion [1]. Paris and Ankara conclude that there will be no victory without returning to the original plan to bomb Syria. An initiative must be taken to put pressure on Washington. On Augu...
This month’s [July–ed.] indictment of a billionaire, one-time advisor and close associate of former US President Donald J. Trump, on charges of operating as an unregistered foreign agent in the United States for the United Arab Emirates highlights the successes and pitfalls of a high-stakes Emirati effort to influence US policy. The indictment of businessm...
The Russian people have successfully managed to foil the latest attempt by the Global Covid Party to enforce its most current list of restrictions and vaccinations. The Covid restrictions were unleashed June 16, while Putin was away at the Geneva summit. Moscow Mayor Sobyanin announced that QR codes would be required to enter all cafés and restaurants, and f...