The international conference on Afghanistan, scheduled to take place in Tashkent on Monday, seems doomed to become yet another inconsequential event. Washington is the prime mover behind the conference, which will be co-chaired by the presidents of Uzbekistan and Afghanistan. But, ironically, the US has undermined its own initiative at the last minute. The Tashkent…
Last Sunday’s Oscar Awards were interrupted by an incongruous propaganda exercise featuring a Native American actor and Vietnam vet, featuring a montage of clips from Hollywood war movies. The actor, Wes Studi, said that he “fought for freedom” in Vietnam. But anyone with even a rudimentary understanding of that war, including for instance the millions of viewers who…
America may be sinking ever deeper into the moral morass of the Trump era, but if you think the malevolence of this period began with him, think again. The moment I still dwell on, the moment I believe ignited the vast public disorder that is now our all-American world, has been almost completely forgotten here….
It was the Year of Three Popes, the battle between a dove and a hawk in the US, protests against the Shah of Iran and a fateful error by the UK Labour prime minister. The events of 40 years ago have had a lasting global impact. On January 1, 1978, the world appeared to be…
One of the top roller-coaster sagas in what, some years ago, I christened Pipelineistan, has yielded a definitive twist. The US$8 billion,1,814-kilometer Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India pipeline (TAPI) was officially inaugurated on Friday, in full pomp, and with proceedings broadcast live on Afghan TV, on the Turkmen-Afghan border close to Herat. Afghanistan’s President Ashraf Ghani hosted Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan…
Afghanistan, no doubt, was what brought Pakistani Foreign Minister Khawaja Asif to Moscow on a ‘working visit’ on February 20. This was Asif’s second meeting with Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in the past 5-month period. They last met in New York on the sidelines of the UNGA session in September. The Russian Ministry took pains…
