While Islamabad and Kabul have many reasons to fight each other, there is one reason for collaboration: The Islamic State, which is making inroads on both sides of the border, but particularly in Afghan districts bordering Pakistan like Nangarhar. Read Here – The Indian Express
As the faction most opposed to the government, Iran’s hard-liners have made it their goal to make Hassan Rouhani the first Iranian president not to be re-elected for a second term. In fact, this objective was sought since their loss of the executive branch back in 2013. Read Here – Al Monitor
The great Sunni Arab implosion that began with the 2011 “Arab Spring” was unforeseen in its suddenness, violence, and extent. But some, both inside and outside the Arab world, had long suspected that, sooner or later, a day of reckoning would indeed arrive. Read Here – Mosaic
Nearly twelve months after Iran’s diplomatic victory with the JCPOA, Tehran is still embroiled in four different major regional conflicts, and a fifth may soon break out. Read Here – The National Interest
British and U.S. plans envisioned using nuclear weapons as an option in Iran and Iraq, according to declassified documents, and the secret oil denial policy lasted at least until the Kennedy Administration. Read Here – U.S. National Security Archives
The prince, who’s the son of King Salman, is leading Saudi Arabia’s biggest-ever economic shakeup, moving to cut subsidies and diversify the economy away from oil by generating an extra $100 billion in non-oil revenue by 2020. Read Here – Bloomberg
Since the conclusion of the Iranian nuclear deal last July, the perennial antagonism between Riyadh and Tehran has reached a dangerous pitch, fuelling the violence that rages in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen and the undercurrent of instability that saturates the region. Read Here – Brookings
For over ten years, the construction of the Salma dam has stretched the capacity of Indian diplomacy, administration and engineering to its limits, as New Delhi kept track of competing warlords on one side to maintain security, and the finance ministry’s beancounters on Raisina Hill. Read Here – The Wire
While the United States has resigned from its role as the leading world champion, it shouldn’t be surprising to see how this action has created an unprecedented vacuum, with dangerous and even evil powers queuing up to fill that void. This sadly has been the case in the Middle East and Europe and even in […]
These gathering clouds over Afghanistan mean that traditional partners such as India must get involved in ways that they chose not to earlier. The danger of a re-emergence of warlordism is now a very likely possibility if the Afghan security forces are not helped in their task of taking on the Taliban. Read Here – The Wire
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