The eruption of democratic defiance among Arabs has discredited neoconservatives and al-Qaeda alike, shattering their shared assumption that Muslims need violent prodding to reclaim their dignity. Ten weeks of protests won Tunisians and Egyptians what 10 years of bloodshed could not purchase for Pax Americana or its archenemy in Iraq or Afghanistan: a spirit of …
Continue reading “How to Prevent Chaos in Pakistan”
The central justification of the U.S.-NATO war against the Afghan Taliban – that the Taliban would allow al-Qaeda to return to Afghanistan – has been challenged by new historical evidence of offers by the Taliban leadership to reconcile with the Hamid Karzai government after the fall of the Taliban government in late 2001. The evidence …
Continue reading “Evidence of 2002 Taliban Offer Damages Myth of al-Qaeda Ties”
On Tuesday morning, the reports of Salman Taseer’s assassination topped headlines around the world. Taseer, the governor of Punjab, Pakistan’s largest province, had been killed by one of his own security guards in a market in Islamabad. The assassination comes amidst mounting political chaos in Pakistan, marked by the instability of the government’s ruling coalition and …
Continue reading “Will US Use Punjab Governor’s Death as Pretext for More Drone Attacks?”
This week’s leak to the New York Times of a proposal for U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF) raids against Afghan insurgent sanctuaries in Pakistan may be intended to put more pressure on the Pakistani military to take action against those sanctuaries. But the proposal for such cross-border raids also reflects a real demand from the …
Continue reading “US Plan for High-Risk Raids into Pakistan Is More Than Psywar”
If actions speak louder than words, the U.S. military this week seemed to confirm the pessimistic findings of the National Intelligence Estimates (NIEs) on the war in Afghanistan and Pakistan, which it had pooh-poohed only last week. The military assessment emphasized a rosy picture of gains in the Helmand and Kandahar provinces in Afghanistan, whereas …
Continue reading “A Radical Solution for the War in Afghanistan”
Amid putting on a two-and-a-half day conference focused on escalating measures against Iran, a neoconservative think-tank held a fundraiser at the residence of Pakistan’s ambassador to the U.S., according to an IPS investigation. The embassy said the think tank, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), failed to notify the Pakistani embassy that the dinner …
Continue reading “Pakistani Ambassador Unknowingly Hosted Neocon Fundraiser”
Fatima Bhutto on how Washington runs Pakistan
New information on the Central Intelligence Agency’s campaign of drone strikes in northwest Pakistan directly contradicts the image the Barack Obama administration and the CIA have sought to establish in the news media of a program based on highly accurate targeting that is effective in disrupting al-Qaeda’s terrorist plots against the United States. A new …
Continue reading “Report Shows Drone Strikes Based on Scant Evidence”
Back before e-mail, a world traveler who wanted to keep in touch and couldn’t just pop into the nearest Internet café might drop you a series of postcards from one exotic locale after another. Pepe Escobar, that edgy, peripatetic globe-trotting reporter for one of my favorite on-line publications, Asia Times, has been doing just …
Continue reading “Pipelineistan’s New Silk Road”
By continuing its halt in NATO convoys headed for Afghanistan through the Torkham border crossing into a second week, Pakistan’s military leadership has brought an end to the unilateral attacks in Pakistan pushed by Gen. David Petraeus and forced Washington to make a new accommodation. And it may make it impossible for Petraeus to make …
Continue reading “Pakistan’s Convoy Halt Forces US to Reduce Tensions” 
