Imran’s foreign and defense policy: an initial assessment on August 1, 2018Imran, the presumed prime minister, made several policy statements in his victory speech on 26 July. First, he suggested that many of the problems concerning Afghanistan and Pakistan were caused by the United States intervention in Afghanistan. This contrasted with the statement from Kabul that Pakistan is partially responsible for Afghanistan’s problems. Who is right? […]
ZA Bhutto and his contradictions on July 26, 2018The young debonair foreign minister would often come to visit the club house that lay across the street from our house in the Barrage Colony in Sukkur. One day my class at St. Mary’s was marched to the train station to greet the motorcade. President Ayub was campaigning for re-election. We waved and chanted as […]
Ending the Kashmir conflict once and for all on July 21, 2018From the beginning, Pakistan’s strategic culture has been dominated by Kashmir. In “Pakistan: A Hard Country,” Anatol Lieven has called it a single-minded obsession that has defined the army’s “whole character and world view.” He noted that the pursuit of Kashmir haddone terrible damage to Pakistan, and could destroy Pakistan altogether. Lieven recalls a retired […]
The wonders of Turkey on July 16, 2018When the 21-year old Sultan Mehmed II rode his horse into the thousand-year old castle of the Byzantines as it lay in ruins after a long and hard fought battle in which Emperor Constantine XI had lost his life, Mehmed II was moved to recite a verse of Saadi’s, “The spider weaves the curtains in […]
Pakistan-US relations during the Kayani era on July 15, 2018General Ashfaq Kayani served as army chief for two terms from November 2007 to 2013. His views shaped Pakistan-US ties during those six years. Kayani was appointed the army chief when domestic political compulsions forced president-general Pervez Musharraf to step down as army chief. Musharraf had often said that the uniform was his “second skin”. […]
Bodega Bay, where Hitchcock filmed The Birds on July 13, 2018Alfred Hitchcock was arguably one of the most influential filmmakers in history and the unquestioned master of suspense. Born to English parents on the outskirts of London in 1988, he was persuaded by US movie producers to move to Hollywood in 1939, soon after the success of his initial films in England. In the US, […]
Redefining national security on July 4, 2018In a special issue of Herald, Rifaat Hussain analysed the results of a survey of 7,000 Pakistanis and noted that “70 years after its creation, Pakistan remains a garrison state in which people are looking more and more toward the armed forces for fulfilling their security needs. Pakistan’s security dilemmas are huge and almost intractable. […]
When psychiatry was under trial on July 3, 2018He sat there on a chair directly across the room from me, an old man with a white beard. He was expressionless, morose, glum and despondent. A federal judge was seated on a raised platformin black robes. She looked like royalty. A marshal stood guard at the entrance. I was one of three alternate jurors, seated […]
Puccini’s La Boheme Opera on June 26, 2018Everyone knows La Boheme, even those who don’t watch opera. The season’s last performance was about to be enacted at the War Memorial Opera House in San Francisco and I decided to see it. The opera’s director said it was the world’s most popular opera and was considered by many art critics to be a […]
The ‘second coming’ of the Taliban on June 26, 2018A US drone strike is credited with having taken out the leader of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). Even though a new leader has been appointed already, some are saying that the Pakistani Taliban are in retreat. But across the border, the opposite is true. We are witnessing the second coming of the (Afghan) Taliban. According […]