Drones are back in action in the restive tribal areas of Pakistan. The brief pause had raised hopes for a thaw in relations between Washington and Islamabad, and it was believed that a new geostrategic understanding with the newly elected political forces would come to address this enigma....
Obama’s National Sec...
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On Thursday, President Obama plans to deliver a speech on national security and counterterrorism issues. The speech comes at a particularly awkward time in Pakistan, the epicenter of the global jihad for more than a decade. Nawaz Sharif has just been elected for an unprecedented third term in...
What to Expect from ...
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Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, the man ousted by Pervez Musharraf in the 1999 army coup, has won a decisive victory in the Pakistani parliamentary elections. His victory itself came as no surprise, but the margin was much greater than anticipated, putting his PML-N party within shouting...
Cause for hope — and fear — in Pakista...
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There is reason for hope in Nawaz Sharif‘s victory in the recent Pakistani elections. Sharif, who has twice served as Pakistan’s prime minister, has said he wants to build a more robust democracy, revive the country’s shattered economy and end the military’s 40-year domination of its politics. He has also promised to improve relations with India and take on the radical Islamist terrorism that has tormented Pakistan. The United States should assist him in every way possible to achieve those goals. But there is also ample reason for caution. The U.S. has a long history of “betting on the come,” of...
Geopolitical conundrum
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When three out of four Pakistanis consider the United States “the enemy,” it’s Mission Impossible to build an alliance worth the name. Retaliating for the accidental killing of 24 Pakistani soldiers on the Afghan border, Pakistan closed NATO’s supply route into Afghanistan for seven months last year. It cost the United States an additional $100 million a month to detour supplies from German ports through Russia and former Soviet republics into northern Afghanistan. This month, a reverse flow of U.S. equipment, expected to last through the end of 2014, left Afghanistan homeward bound to the United States via the...