The recent diplomatic spat between Pakistan and Saudi Arabia provides a glimpse of how mixing religious beliefs and historic relations can prove costly for nations that are either incapable of devising a balanced foreign policy or are dependent on global powers, and instead of having a free and dynamic foreign policy prefers to be dictated. Read Here – […]
Any new upheaval in Iran has far-reaching implications in the short term for the nuclear deal, and in the longer term for regional stability (Syria, Lebanon and Yemen) and regional power relationships (Saudi Arabia, Iraq). At best, social ferment could herald a new discussion – at worst, it would descend into a fight: about what […]
In Iran, the obstacles to success are daunting. Whereas most Middle Eastern countries are ruled by secular autocrats focused on repressing primarily Islamist opposition, Iran is an Islamist autocracy focused on repressing secular opposition. This dynamic—unarmed, unorganized, leaderless citizens seeking economic dignity and pluralism, versus a heavily armed, organized, rapacious ruling theocracy that espouses martyrdom—is […]
Before the 1979 Islamic Revolution, this city was pious and sedate… Qom became the bedrock of Iran’s theocracy and remains one of the country’s holiest places — home to 200,000 religious scholars, a destination for Shiite Muslim pilgrims and a center of Islamic thought in a country whose political system is controlled by the clerical establishment. […]
Rafsanjani’s death reflects a growing reality for Tehran’s theocrats. The first generation of revolutionaries are now in their late sixties, seventies, and eighties. They are, literally, a dying breed. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has served as Supreme Leader since 1989, will be seventy-eight this year. Read Here – The New Yorker
Liberal democracy was the core ideology of the foundation of Pakistan, something that was clearly articulated by Mohammad Ali Jinnah in an interview to Reuters in 1946. “The new state,” he said, “would be a modern democratic state with sovereignty resting in the people and the members of the new nation having equal rights of […]
looking beyond borders 