A Strategic Conundrum: Pakistan’s Transit Corridor to Iran as Lifeline or Liability
The US-Iran standoff over the Strait of Hormuz — disruptive to global trade and energy flows, and devastating for debt-burdened economies — has handed Pakistan an unexpected geoeconomic opportunity, one that may persist even if the framework agreement announced on June 14 results in a lasting peace and permanent reopening of the strait. But seizing it will have interlocking consequences for Islamabad’s ties with Tehran, Washington, and the Gulf states.
Russia’s Taliban Embrace Signals a New Power Shift in Afghanistan
Sometimes the only thing more frightening than Afghanistan’s problems is the Taliban’s solutions and the recently signed Russia-Taliban military-technical agreement may be the most alarming one yet. The partnership signals that Afghanistan’s security architecture is being rebuilt without the United States, and increasingly by America’s rivals. Washington should pay close attention because the deal hands one of the world’s most repressive regimes a pathway to becoming more capable and deeply entrenched in a regional order where Russian influence is expanding at America’s expense.
The Pakistani General Running Washington’s Backchannel to Tehran
As Washington and Tehran edge closer to escalation, the most critical line of communication keeping the crisis from spiraling is being run not by polished diplomats, but by an unlikely figure: a Pakistani general. Field Marshal Asim Munir, Pakistan’s powerful army chief, has quietly become the key intermediary in the U.S.-Iran standoff, managing what may be the most important backchannel between the two sides. The mediation has thrust Pakistan to the center of the crisis while exposing it to enormous risk.
Since the overthrow of King Mohammad Zahir Shah in 1973, Afghanistan has been plagued by war — either war waged among ideologues (Marxists v. nationalists) or war marked by foreign invasion and occupation. The Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, which began in 1979, lasted a full decade.
This Opinion was first published in The National Interest on July 12, 2012
After an eighteen-month free fall, there is tangible improvement in the tumultuous U.S.-Pakistan relationship and an opportunity to leverage these gains for a durable peace in Afghanistan. Backtracking from a messy divorce, both Washington and Islamabad have forsaken their previous approaches of unrelenting maximalism, each making necessary compromises to make the partnership work.
Bruce Richardson raises an important issue regarding the protection, trafficking, and exploitation of cultural patrimony. Aspects of this issue range across research, polemics, and litigation in attempts to document loss, return treasures, or on the other hand prevent restitution or repatriation. Richardson properly decries cultural looting, but we must distinguish among causes to reach agreement on protective steps.
The Afghanistan Stabilisation Program (ASP): A National Program to Improve Security and Governance
Since the coup in April of 1978 by the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), the social, cultural, political, economic, governance, and security fabric of Afghanistan’s institutions have been destroyed by the subsequent Mujahedin and Taleban regimes. It is impossible to have enduring peace, stability, and development in a country without a strong institutional foundation. After 33 years of war and instability, for the most part, the linkages between central, provincial, district, and village governance structures in Afghanistan are either very weak or non-existent.
Pakistan's Military Holds the Keys to a Thaw with the U.S.
This Opinion first appeared in the the National on June 15, 2012
Just when U.S.-Pakistan relations appear to have reached a new low, yet another event drives them lower still, further complicating chances of stabilising bilateral ties.
Over the last 18 months, the deterioration of relations has been punctuated by a series of incidents, most dramatically the May 2011 raid that killed Osama bin Laden and the U.S. air strike last November at Salala, in which 24 Pakistani solders died.
America's Catch-22: The Iran Question in Afghanistan
This Opinion first appeared in Frontline.com’s Tehran Bureau on June 13, 2012 and was co-authored by Christina Lin
As U.S. and other NATO troops prepare to leave Afghanistan in 2014, a geopolitical realignment will be under way in Southwest Asia. One possible scenario would outright undermine a principle U.S. policy objective in the region: the containment of Iran.
When Russian archaeologist Viktor Sarianidi excavated Tilya Tepe in 1978, 21,000 bejeweled, gold artifacts created during the Greco-Bactrian era known as The Golden Hoard of Bactria were reported as inventoried, photographed, and catalogued. But in consideration of the time (1978), and the fact that the Kremlin was considering military intervention in Afghanistan in support of the Communist regime, it seems prudent to challenge the veracity of Professor Sarianidi’s findings.
The oldest peer-reviewed publication dedicated to the study of the modern Middle East, MEI’s flagship journal covers politics, society, and culture in the region.
