Hopes could hardly be lower for the talks between U.S. and Taliban representatives that are scheduled to begin this week in Doha. A day after announcing they would enter negotiations, the Taliban killed four coalition soldiers in a rocket attack outside Kabul, Afghanistan. Afghan President Hamid Karzai, worried that the U.S.-sponsored talks will legitimize his enemies, abruptly cut off […]
The end of political Islam has been predicted time and time again for more than 20 years. The trajectory followed by the regime in Iran, the crises in Algeria, Egypt and elsewhere pointed to the conclusion drawn by Olivier Roy (followed by Gilles Kepel): “The failure of political Islam” and its inevitable end, which had […]
Over the last few years, Jakarta has laid down legal infrastructure that discriminates against religious minorities, allowing Islamists to take the law into their own hands, says Pallavi Aiyer. Read Here – The Hindu
To stop Syria’s meltdown and contain its mushrooming threats, the United States should launch a partial military intervention aimed at pushing all sides to the negotiating table, argues Andrew. J. Tabler in Foreign Affairs Creating a no-fly zone sounds good on paper, military officials say, and might help to give a morale boost to the […]
This year’s contest is a far cry from four years ago, when tens of thousands of Iranians took to the streets in spontaneous protests prior to the presidential election. That activism is missing this year as voters focus on a stalled economy. The lineup of mostly conservative candidates are unlikely to take on the ruling […]
New Delhi will be confronted by a host of rapidly changing scenarios in Afghanistan as the country heads for transition in the security and political sectors in 2014. The interplay between different actors jockeying for power could either allow India to retain its present level of engagement, provide opportunities to expand its influence or bring […]
Xinhua – Severe crisis seems to have gripped India‘s main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) with barely a year to go for the general elections. Read Here Economist – India’s main opposition, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), could hardly have chosen differently. At a big party gathering, in Goa, on June 9th, its leaders picked Narendra […]
Every nation bordering Syria—Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Israel, Turkey—is being drawn into the conflict there. The leaders in these countries are worried, to say the least. But why is Saudi Arabia in a panic? None of the Syrian warfare is spilling over into Saudi Arabia. Iraq and Jordan serve as buffers. Still, hundreds if not thousands of […]
Yet again Iraq finds itself at a ‘crossroad’ – a euphemism for political intransigence to the point of paralysis coupled with a spike in violence, cruelty and ethno-sectarian entrenchment. As with all such crossroads since 2003 the idea that Iraq needs to – or indeed inevitably will – fragment into three states with neat ethno-sectarian […]
The Syrian opposition is in disarray; approving a major American military intervention is politically impossible in post-Iraq Washington; and a rift between Saudi Arabia and Qatar has slowed their delivery of weaponry to the rebels. Diplomatically, Washington’s key interlocutor is Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, one of Assad‘s primary international defenders. One key factor favors […]
looking beyond borders 