Afghanistan
-
The Stans
X.T.M shares a chart from @DailyTurkic of Pew data on adults who pray five times a day in the “Stan” countries. He notes that Persianate Tajikistan and Afghanistan are more…
-
Geography is Power
A reply to X.T.M’s post, this essay argues from realism that geography has shaped South Asian states’ trajectories, citing Mackinder and Spykman, Pakistan’s Cold War and GWOT frontier role, and…
-
Open Thread: AfPak – Cocktail 2
A brief note passing on an amusing reader comment about propping up Afghanistan as China does Pakistan, with a plan to watch something in a few hours.
-
Arab Fathers are not fabrications (entirely)
Answering BB’s claim that Pakistanis invent foreign fathers, the author argues South Asian Muslims are not one block: Pashtuns, Baloch, Hazaras and Sayyids carry foreign ancestry the genetic record supports,…
-
Pakistan must not treat Afghanistan like Gaza
X.T.M argues that Pakistan’s strike on a Kabul addiction hospital, which Taliban authorities say killed 408, echoes Gaza in its asymmetry of suffering. He accepts that TTP attacks are real…
-
Allama Iqbal’s Dream Fulfilled; West Pakistan Defends India Against the Barbarians..
Omar Ali proposes that Iqbal’s 1930 idea of a northwest Muslim state defending India from invaders has proved partly right, with Pakistan a buffer against the Middle East. He argues…
-
Open Thread – “Open War” breaks out between Pakistan and Afghanistan
Open Thread on open war between Pakistan and Afghanistan: Pakistani airstrikes on Kabul and Kandahar followed Taliban attacks on border posts on the Durand Line, with the question of where…
-
Book Review: Empire’s Son, Empire’s Orphan. Ikbal Shah and Idries Shah (of Sufis fame)
Omar Ali reviews Nile Green’s biography of Ikbal and Idries Shah, which presents the father and son as fantasists who invented aristocratic Sufi credentials. He accepts the case but notes…
-
The growing Pakistan-Afghan Conflict. What next?
The author asks where Pakistan goes next as the Durand Line dispute and the TTP insurgency escalate. He argues that Pakistani military superiority may not decide a mountain insurgency, and…
-
Obituary: Major Agha Humayun Amin
An obituary of Major (retd) Agha Humayun Amin, who died in Lahore aged about 64. It remembers him as Pakistan’s premier military historian, a stickler for accuracy with salty opinions,…