Pakistan: A candidate for supporting the ‘Deal of the Century’?

27 Jan 202027 Apr 2020

Posted originally to Express Tribune Blogs on 27 January 2019. While difficult to predict how Pakistan would react, the scenario where it is deemed suitable by the makers of 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…

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…

4D Chess by PTI standards: India’s Foreign Minister slams same ‘liberal media’ PTI keeps pandering to

22 Oct 201925 Oct 2019

'English-speaking liberal media biased, covered Kashmir unfairly - India's Foreign Minister' - 22 October 2019, RT A crude exhibition of the typical cheap brand of low-cunning possessed by Indian political…

Upcoming anti-Pakistan Congress hearing on Kashmir described as ‘achievement’ by pro-PTI media

21 Oct 201925 Oct 2019

Another example exemplifying PTI's fruitless and futile pandering to the US system and its repeated, shoddy attempts to paint their efforts as yielding anything at all can be seen in…

IoK’s annexation shows that PTI’s appeasement policy is a failure

9 Oct 201925 Oct 2019

Did Pakistan really believe constantly making un-reciprocated peace gestures was going to make India's ruling BJP decide to not go ahead with the annexation of Indian-occupied Kashmir? i.e Something that has been…

The Frankenstein monster that is PTI-era ‘patriotism’ and Imran’s failed Kashmir activism

22 Sep 20197 Dec 2019

I really need to get this out there. My thoughts on certain upsetting trends put into place at the worst possible time in history by the Imran Khan-led PTI government…

Putting Pakistan’s ‘Israel Question’ into geostrategic context

18 Sep 20193 Apr 2020

Published originally by the Islamabad Policy Institute on 18 September 2019. Informed discourse on Israel, the Middle East and current geopolitical affairs pertaining to Israel is not stimulating the current…

Should Pakistan expect US withdrawal from Afghanistan?

16 Sep 201925 Oct 2019

I'm resharing this piece from a few months earlier where I expressed skepticism over the US-Taliban peace talks' prospects. This is founded in some very consequential, very long-term and very…