Afghanistan-Pakistan

Frantic efforts are being made to clear the way for intra-Afghan talks, the logical next step forward in the implementation of the February U.S.-Taliban deal.

The Taliban’s military and diplomatic strategies are intended to work in tandem, one leveraging the other. Each has as its ultimate goal the Taliban’s recovery of an emirate lost in 2001.

The spread of the virus, unease about a cease-fire, peace talks, and the American withdrawal leave the Afghan people gripped with a heightened sense of uncertainty.

The growing U.S. strategic reliance on India has fomented closer bilateral ties between China and Pakistan, straining the U.S.-Pakistan relationship.

The lifting of lockdown restrictions could lead to a spike in cases for which the country is ill prepared.

There was no other way to end the political logjam in conflict-ridden Afghanistan than to make current President Ashraf Ghani and the outgoing Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah agree to share power. The deal announced on May 17 has been widely welcomed by the international community because the political tensions between the two rivals were viewed as one of the major hurdles to the advancement of an intra-Afghan reconciliation process. The political jockeying in Kabul is far from the only impediment to reconciliation though and there are deeper obstacles to the peace process.

The U.S.’s willingness to grant wide berth to the Taliban has effectively given them license to continue a campaign of violence.

Rather than seeing the spreading virus as a common enemy, the Taliban seem to be viewing the health crisis as opening new military opportunities.

MEI Distinguished Senior Fellow Joseph Votel, a retired four-star general in the Army and former commander of U.S. Central Command, joins host Alistair Taylor to discuss the challenges facing American forces in the Middle East today, from COVID-19 and ISIS to the turbulent situations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Rather than being visibly engaged, the military seems content with having the civilian authorities carry the responsibility for dealing with the crisis.

The country faces no letup in either political squabbling or insurgent attacks.

The Islamic Republic’s unconventional alliance network reaches far and wide, and its workings have only intensified since the killing of Gen. Qassem Soleimani in early January 2020. The systematic effort to consolidate these alliances, indicated by the swift appointment of Gen. Esmail Qaani and his new deputy Gen. Mohammad Hosseinzadeh Hejazi to lead the Quds Force, is about much more than just retaliation and revenge against the United States. It is also, and perhaps more importantly, a calibrated response to the Trump administration’s reckless and escalatory changes to the established “rules of engagement” between Washington and Tehran.