Vladimir Putin “We discussed this important issue yesterday over a beer...”
Barack OBAMA “You know, my faith is one that admits some doubt...”
By Zahid U Kramet United States President Barack Obama has conceded the need for cooperation among intelligence agencies to unravel plots ”from the mountains of Pakistan” to the streets of American cities. But in pursuing regional alliances, the difficulties of getting all players in Central and South Asia on the same page are legion. Read [...]
By Dr Farakh A Khan In conventional warfare ‘strategic depth’ is an important feature of war tactics. In recent times (1812) Napoleon was sucked into the vast Russian plains and defeated by the weather and exhaustion. Of his 400,000-strong army, only 40,000 returned home to France. When the Greek army, with the support of the [...]
By James Dobbins President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan wants to talk to the Taliban, and that’s going to be a thorny issue for President Obama… Some U.S. officials would prefer that Mr. Karzai and his government concentrate on detaching low-level fighters from the insurgent cause, but Mr. Karzai would prefer to go right to the [...]
By Gareth Porter Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s team once talked openly about the need to remove Ahmed Wali Karzai, Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s brother and the most powerful man in Kandahar, from power. Last October, as reports of Wali Karzai’s role in the opium trade were circulating, McChrystal’s intelligence Chief Gen. Michael T. Flynn said, “If [...]
By Peter Zeihan 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 [...]
By Ray McGovern The times may be “a-changin” – at least a bit – with the United States and Israel no longer able to dictate to the rest of the world how crises in the Middle East must be handled, though the new reality has been slow to dawn on Secretary of State Hillary Clinton [...]
By Robert Fisk I’ve always claimed that somewhere across the Atlantic – or perhaps somewhere over the Mediterranean – there lies a geopolitical fault line, perhaps a screen or curtain, through which the loveable old West (once called Christendom) sees the Middle East, and then misinterprets all it observes. An Iranian offer of peaceably resolving [...]
By Syed Saleem Shahzad Pakistan has suspended eight police officials following the release of a United Nations report into the assassination of former prime minister, Benazir Bhutto, but no action has been taken against any members of the military or intelligence agencies, even though the report implicates the military in the events surrounding Bhutto’s death [...]
By Dr Farakh A Khan UK Foreign Minister, David Miliband in his article ‘How to end the war in Afghanistan’ claimed that neither UK nor the US started the war in Afghanistan. Then who did? Miliband is either ill-informed or deliberately not telling the truth. For President Obama Afghan war was inherited ‘war of necessity’. [...]
By Zahid Kramet She’s a pretty girl on the threshold of becoming a beautiful woman. Turning 28, she’s intelligent, articulate, a journalist, a poet and an author. She’s just topped the non-fiction best-sellers list in India with her new book ‘Songs of Blood and Sword’. She’s Fatima Bhutto the grand-daughter of the legendary Zulfiqar Ali [...]
MOROCCO: 20th February “Movement of change”
Pakistan all set to start with a win against Kenya
TTP releases video of Colonel Imam’s killing
Immediate military withdrawal ordered in Bahrain
40 UK arms export licenses revoked for Bahrain
Bahrain sets up “Unity Alliance” amid violent uprisings:
Dark clouds hover over Pakistan amid internal and external pressure