The framers of the 2020-21 budget were confronted with a long list of conflicting objectives.
Mainly at issue for the country is the difficult choice of whether to prioritize saving lives or saving the economy for a Pakistan that can ill afford to ignore either.
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.
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 Middle East is facing an unexpected turning point. The region will not look the same after COVID-19 as it did before it. The geoeconomics and geopolitics of the world are in free fall because of COVID-19, the oil price war, and a severe economic shutdown. For the Middle East and the Gulf monarchies in particular, the oil price war against Russia and U.S. shale and the shutdown of economies around the world have increased the pressure on the Gulf’s already-depleted financial resources, which usually act as a safety valve for the turbulent region.
11 scholars and experts from across MEI weigh in with the latest on how the coronavirus pandemic is affecting the Middle East.
Vanda Felbab-Brown, Michael Kugelman, and Marvin Weinbaum join host Alistair Taylor to discuss the recent US-Taliban agreement in Afghanistan, the political power struggle over the presidency, the challenges facing the intra-Afghan dialogue, and the effects of coronavirus.