The Afghanistan opportunity
Most of our legitimate export and import activities are conducted via our southern outlet to the sea through Karachi and Bin Qasim ports. We do not do any significant foreign…
Project Afghanistan
Maybe we don’t know what we’re doing. Maybe we’re hostage to history and the past. Maybe the outside world is wrong.Or maybe we know exactly what we’re doing and why.…
New realities in Afghanistan
The death of Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour who was killed in a drone strike in Balochistan near the border with Afghanistan has raised more questions than it answers with…
Afghanistaning ourselves
Has the state-building exercise undertaken by the US and its allies in Afghanistan failed? It sure seems like it. We have witnessed a tumultuous Karzai era, followed by a tumultuous…
Afghanistan’s terrible war: money for nothing
The Taliban and its allies seized Kunduz, a major city in northern Afghanistan. It was a Mosul-style capture – a few hundred Taliban overran thousands of the Afghan National Army…
Options in Afghanistan
Recently the top UN representative in Kabul grimly remarked that in 2016, success for Afghanistan would be measured in binary terms: whether it survived or not. Afghan security forces are…
US army to stay in Afghanistan till 2017: Obama
WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama on Thursday announced maintaining the current level of US forces in Afghanistan till 2017 and leaving at least half of the troops after that while running…
Beyond Afghanistan
The last few weeks have been crucial for Pakistan’s foreign policy. Apparently, the civilian and military leaderships dealt successfully with the challenges thrown up by developments in the region and…
For a stable Afghanistan
Pak-Afghan relations have never been cordial. There is a long history of mutual mistrust, suspicion and accusations of interference in internal affairs. How did this mistrust develop? Most of the…
Afghanistan: moving forward
Pakistan's adviser to the prime minister on foreign affairs stated recently that the time was not yet ripe for restarting the Afghan peace talks to which Pakistan, at the request…
