ISLAMABAD, Pakistan ‚ As the American campaign against suspected Al Qaeda and Taliban militants in Pakistan's tribal areas seemed to intensify on Friday, two missiles fired from remotely piloted American aircraft killed 12 people on Friday in an attack on a village compound in North Waziristan, according to a local journalist and television reports. At […]
Bobby Ghosh has a piece in Time magazine celebrating the eradication of jihad from Saudi Arabia. I am inclined to think it's a little short-sighted. His evidence of the decline of Islamic extremism is, primarily, the relative absence of police checkpoints in the city of Riyadh. His treatment of the human rights violations that go […]
Moustafa Bayoumi, professor at Brooklyn College, published a book this year called How Does It Feel to Be a Problem? Being Young and Arab in America. It follows the stories of seven young Arab-Americans living in Brooklyn in the wake of 9/11 to illustrate their conflicted relationships with their country of residence. It was excerpted […]
First off the post below was one done a few weeks ago, but we had to put it back up for so it could be linked to the Brookings Institute newsletter, my apologies for any confusion. Today, will be a glorified link-dump, focusing on Iran in Central Asia, among other topics. A. Iran In light […]
The so-called polygamy bill, which would make it easier for a man to take a second (or third, or fourth) wife, was abandoned by the Iranian parliament. This comes after extended protesting by Iranian women, including the infamous Shirin Ebadi. Some of her colleagues were arrested and imprisoned earlier this month for voicing their opposition […]
The New York Times reported that President Bush secretly signed an executive order authorizing the American military forces operating in Afghanistan to carry out cross border raids, attack or both if necessary to fight the Taliban. The question is whether this will help or hurt the fight against terrorism. Every leading foreign policy expert has […]
If the optimists are right and the sides in the Zimbabwe negotiations really are close to an agreement, even Thabo Mbeki's harshest critics will be forced to give the man credit for his role in keeping the sides at the bargaining table and thus facilitating an agreement. Certainly Mbeki will still be vulnerable to accusations […]
Despite my pessimism (cynicism? realism?) about the on-again, off-again negotiations in Zimbabwe, optimism seems to be ruling the day elsewhere. And assuming that the various parties can overcome the remaining sticking points and achieve a meaningful agreement, I will be happy to have been wrong (though I think that my generally skeptical forecast and assessments […]
On Tuesday, at the press conference following his swearing-in, President Asif Ali Zardari set the tone by saying: "The president will only carry forward the brief of the government and bow before the parliament; the president will be subservient to parliament". This is all he could say as president, but those present around him wanted […]
Pakistan's civilian leadership today endorsed the head of the army after he took the unusual step of criticising the US for launching unilateral attacks on Pakistani soil. General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, considered by the US as a pivotal figure in the “war on terror”, said yesterday Pakistan had never agreed to allow the US to […]
In honor of Dushanbe's hosting of tomorrow's Shanghai Cooperation Organization 2008 summit, we should discuss the current state of the nation, its struggles and prospects. To help me do this I will use another one of Johannes Linn's, executive director of the Brookings Institution's Wolfensohn Center for Development, pieces he wrote while visiting the region […]
It seems like every other post I was link dropping Johannes Linn's Brooking Institution pieces on Central Asian's energy, water, and food challenges, but today is the day, my friends, when I actually discuss them! 1. Central Asia's Energy Challenge – In Linn's ‘Central Asia's Energy Challenge; Overcoming the Natural Resource Curse‘ he reports back […]
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