By James M. Dorsey An Indonesian promise to work with the United Arab Emirates to promote ‘moderate’ Islam raises questions of what constitutes moderation and how it can best be achieved. The pledge, made by Indonesian President Joko Widodo during a three-day visit to the UAE some time ago to solicit Emirati investment in the world’s most populous Muslim-majority state, …
By James M. Dorsey Gulf states are in a pickle. They fear that the emerging parameters of a reconfigured US commitment to security in the Middle East threaten to upend a more-than-a-century-old pillar of regional security and leave them with no good alternatives. The shaky pillar is the Gulf monarchies’ reliance on a powerful external ally that, in the words …
By James M. Dorsey A paradigm shift in jihadist thinking suggests that the US invasion of Afghanistan may prove to have achieved more than many counterterrorism experts would want policymakers and military strategists to believe. Similarly, the paradigm shift also hints at the possibility that the presence in a Taliban-governed Afghanistan of various militant Islamist and jihadist groups could turn …
By James M. Dorsey THE Taliban’s record in recent weeks on making good on promises to respect human and women’s rights as well as uphold freedom of the press is mixed at best. Afghanistan’s neighbours and near-neighbours are not holding their breath even if some are willing to give the Central Asian country’s new rulers the benefit of the doubt. …
THE miserable failure by the government to secure any meaningful position in the Cantonment Board Elections the other day (the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz blowing the PTI out of the water) should be an eye opener for the “powers that be” (no, NOT the government) that their “chosen one” has overstayed his welcome! Furthermore, even the Pakistani diaspora abroad and expats …
James M. Dorsey Recent attacks on Kabul’s international airport by the Islamic State’s Afghan affiliate raise multiple questions as well as the spectre of paradigm shifts in the drivers and expanding geography of political violence. The attacks have called into question the Taliban’s ability to maintain security and keep a lid on the activities of multiple militant groups in Afghanistan. …
It’s quite sad how some people (and others who somehow became interviewers, not journalists) couldn’t see this coming and think yet they’ve done a great stroke by misplacing their unbridled faith randomly in a motley group of individuals who catapulted from abject dormancy and obscurity to unfettered frivolity in a matter of months! Couldn’t this dreamy eyed band see what …
A nation of hypocrites? Though we won’t go into detail about it in this piece, let it suffice to say that we’ve been a nation of liars and cheats from before our country was born, a fact supported by Mr. Jinnah’s and the British pre and post Partition speeches and conversational inuendos. Parallel to this thought is the one that …
Well, the bombshell has finally dropped but is being looked at through various colored glasses. That is to say, the pro Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) conjure up wishful and idealistic notions of indemnity from various clauses of the Supreme Court of Pakistan’s decision, whereas the anti PML-N hawks say there’s no way former prime minister Nawaz Sharif’s party is …
THE New York Times ran an editorial yesterday that seemed to suggest that the United States Congress couldn’t be bothered with gun legislation that it “thought” would lead to a gun-free society, in the aftermath of the latest gun violence in Las Vegas in the state of Nevada. Point all you want but as they say in the US,……”Aint happenin'”! …
