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Recent Posts Tagged With 'pakistan'
Forgetting what it\'s for
Here's a bit of insight on how a few Pakistanis might feel about the United States' position re: their nuclear arsenal:A retired senior Pakistani intelligence officer, who worked with his C.I.A. counterparts to track down Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, said...
The Islamabad-Beijing axis
NightWatch makes an interesting observation. See the last line of the quote below:StrategyPage.com published the following article today. As is its practice, no sources were cited.“The Chinese are sharing intelligence and equipment with the Pakista...
King of the castle?
Meir Javedanfar wrote a great piece yesterday about Iran's growing influence in Afghanistan for Real Clear World. Here are a few pointed excerpts:another reason for Iran’s reappraised Afghan policy is Tehran's strategic desire to improve its bargai...
Quote of the day
Quote of the day, by Judah Grunstein, inspired by John Mueller, referring to Al Qaeda's 300 alleged members in Pakistan:We've now got upwards of 40,000 troops in Afghanistan, with the ostensible mission to eliminate the threat posed by 300 guys. In P...
Don't fall for it!
What Juan Cole and Ian Bremmer have been saying, what I've been repeating and supporting, has now been said even better by Judah Grunstein:I do not believe that the Taliban pose an "existential threat" to the Pakistani state. It's not even certain th...
Indeed
This Stratfor wire seems to confirm Juan Cole's and Ian Bremmer's previously discussed points according to which the United States' interests might be aligning with Pakistan's military, rather than with its civilian and democratically-elected governm...
The obvious no one cares to see?
Faithful readers will know how much I seek and value arguments that counter widespread (and sometimes erroneous) beliefs, particularly when they help enlighten a complicated situation with high impact on our view of the world.Juan Cole recently made ...
Back again?
Ian Bremmer suggests Pakistan's democratic stint could be a short-lived one (again). I tend to agree... The question is: how good would it be for U.S. interests if the military takes the reins. (On the one hand, stability. On the other hand... well.....
Who's it gonna be?
I had a hunch that U.S. infantrymen weren't the ones protecting the logistical convoys that travel through Pakistan from the port of Karachi to ISAF bases in Afghanistan on a daily basis: the Pakistani population probably wouldn't like that too much....
A job for everyone
It seems Pakistani civilians have grown angry at both their police force and the Taliban alike and are now fighting for themselves:Every night, each of the houses in Budaber, a town of around 1,000 families, volunteers one man to participate in these...
That nightmare you hadn't thought of...
Is a takeover of Pakistan's capital by ever-marching Taliban insurgents the main risk the West faces in South Asia? Could be...But Stephen Walt has another lead too:the real danger may not be state failure and a subsequent Taliban takeover. The more ...
Feudality redux
Owais Ahmad Ghani, the governor of Pakistan's unruly NWFP talks to the Asia Times Online about why his country has agreed to engage in deal-brokering with its insurgent enemies. His thought is illuminated by memories of a pre-1979 status quo:it is 19...
Shhh
Brian Burton has a good case against the Af-Pak expression. As he puts it, the acronym (this one and others, like "GWOT") is useless and dangerous. Not only does it limit our ability to comprehend what we're debating about, but it risks offending, an...
Run!
Can this be true? Seems to me like it would be a pretty big shift in regional politics:Iranian police chief Brig. Gen. Esmaeil Ahmadi Moqaddam on Feb. 21 said his forces are ready to pursue militants who flee to Pakistan after carrying out operations...
