Long satisfied to attempt to dominate pan-Arab media and battle it out with Qatar’s state-owned Al Jazeera television network, Saudi Arabia has now set its hegemonic sights on influencing the media landscape of the non-Arabic speaking greater Middle East. In the wake of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s concentration last year of control of Saudi-owned…
President Donald Trump launched a new verbal attack against Iran’s president Rouhani, vowing “consequences the likes of which few have ever suffered before” if Hassan Rouhani continues threatening America in a late-night Sunday all caps tweet. In the tweet, addressed to Rouhani, Trump said, “To Iranian President Rouhani: NEVER, EVER THREATEN THE UNITED STATES AGAIN…
Looks like Trump is running amok with his “trading policies”. Not only has he upset the European Union – which doesn’t deserve any better, frankly, for having been and still being submissive vassals against the will of by now 90% of Europeans; but he has also managed to get China into a fury. Well, for…
America’s War in Vietnam remains a signpost signifying a moment when America’s own exceptionalist myth of invincibility began to falter in open sight. The watershed moment of the last helicopter leaving Saigon in 1975 became emblematic of a lumbering, highly equipped by deeply demoralised American armed forces that ultimately could not win a war against…
Pakistan-Afghanistan relations: Lessons learned the hard way Throughout the Cold War period, the phenomenon of ethnic Pashtun nationalism on either side of the Durand Line led to Pakistan developing an intense suspicion of multiple Afghan governments in Kabul. The Durand Line which itself is a legacy of British imperial rule in south Asia remains the internationally…
A new strategic fault line appeared in the Afghan conflict last week when Islamabad hosted an unusual meeting of the heads of the intelligence agencies of Russia, China and Iran on July 11. Moscow thoughtfully publicized the event both for its optics as well as to pre-empt misperceptions that some sort of zero-sum game might…
