Pakistan & the Kuala Lumpur Summit 2019

14 Dec 201917 Dec 2019

Co-authored with Mobeen Jafar Mir for Islamabad Policy Institute (IPI) on 13 December 2019. The upcoming ‘Kuala Lumpur Summit 2019’ going to be held at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre…

Rapid GCC requests for US-Iran de-escalation recall who really wants the war

17 Jan 202023 Jan 2020

Posted originally to Express Tribune blogs on 17 January 2020. The Gulf Arabs’ urgent engagement with the US to urge de-escalation with Iran from the current crescendo reached after the…

Lessons in tenacity: Why Pakistan should learn from Turkey

4 Jan 202017 Jan 2020

Posted originally to The Express Tribune on 4 January 2020. When faced with the seemingly unyielding support of its ostensible NATO ‘partners’ for Kurdish secessionists in the Syrian-Turkish border regions,…

Saudi fragility makes Imran’s volte-face on Malaysia Summit more embarrassing

21 Dec 20193 Jan 2020

Posted originally to Express Tribune blogs on 21 December 2019. The flawed gains-and-losses calculus of Imran Khan’s PTI government recently produced what may well be the most aberrational and peculiar…

Will the Israel-GCC alliance prop up Hindu nationalist India?

17 Dec 201921 Dec 2019

Posted originally to American Herald Tribune on 17 December 2019. Indo-Israeli ties have always been deep and underscored by ideological affinity, with Israel even in the years prior to having…

The Israel Lobby’s Hidden Hand in the Theft of Iraqi and Syrian Oil

11 Dec 201911 Dec 2019

By Agha Hussain and Whitney Webb, for MintPress News, posted on 10 December 2019. KIRKUK, IRAQ — “We want to bring our soldiers home. But we did leave soldiers because we’re…

Lacking direction: PTI’s Kashmir Policy

7 Dec 20196 Jan 2020

Posted originally to Strafasia on 7 December 2019. Does Imran Khan ignoring the letter of Syed Ali Geelani, veteran Kashmiri freedom icon, epitomize the PTI’s Kashmir policy? Is the PTI…

India’s Kashmir propaganda: A leaf out of Israel’s book

18 Nov 20194 Dec 2019

Posted originally to Express Tribune Blogs (Part 1 and Part 2). The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leading India is clearly fond of Israel, but India regardless of its ruling…

Awkward spat with WWE epitomizes bin Salman as a leader

5 Nov 201915 Nov 2019

Posted originally to Express Tribune Blogs on 5 November 2019. In recent news, the famous American World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) is in a spat with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin…

The falsehood that is the ‘Persian-Arab conflict’ narrative

2 Nov 201918 Nov 2019

Posted originally to The Express Tribune Blogs on 2 November 2019. Discredited and archaic explanatory frameworks are superposed onto geopolitical conflicts and rivalries at the expense of accurate appraisal of…