The treacherous waters of foreign policy
The newly elected National Assembly has held its inaugural session. The short but intense election campaign, which resulted in the convincing victory of the PML-N, demonstrated yet again that the…
Our rooms and their streets
Use your brain before May 11 – this meme, one of many that are doing the rounds on the Pakistani blogosphere in the run-up to the general elections, comes as…
New policy on drones
President Obama’s speech at the American National Defense University last Thursday attracted a great deal of attention and analysis. It is particularly important for us in Pakistan to understand exactly…
Diplomacy and force
THE United States is just beginning to realise some ageold truths on the exercise of diplomacy and the use of force. While diplomacy without the sanction of force is impotent,…
The dilemma of being right
“You may be put to trouble not because you are doing anything wrong but because you are doing right”. These are the prophetic words that Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah said…
Foreign policy challenges
THE new government emerging from yesterday`s elections will face difficult domestic problems. The external challenges it will confront are equally daunting. The most urgent foreign policy challenges could be summed…
The Afghanistan challenge
It is more or less clear that despite security threats and administrative breakdowns the massive — by Pakistani standards — turnout in the May 11 elections has given Nawaz Sharif…
All or nothing
Imran Khan and the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) have thrown this election wide open. Ask any commentator/analyst and you’ll get a different prediction. Some say he’ll sweep the elections, while others…
The mirage of democracy
Use your brain before May 11 – this meme, one of many that are doing the rounds on the Pakistani blogosphere in the run-up to the general elections, comes as…
Diplomacy and force
The United States is just beginning to realize some age-old truths on the exercise of diplomacy and the use of force. While diplomacy without the sanction of force is impotent,…
