How do you solve a problem like Pakistan?
November 9, 2011 | Sharyn Mittelman
Pakistan is a foreign policy conundrum for the West. While Pakistan has publicly been an ‘ally’ to the West in fighting al-Qaeda and supporting the war in Afghanistan, privately its intelligence agencies work with the Taliban and support terrorist organisations. In addition, Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal is considered by many to be unstable, and therefore poses a very real threat to international security should it end up in the wrong hands.
West failing Arab liberals as Islamists rise
September 1, 2011 | Daniel Meyerowitz-Katz
Protests are raging again in Iran, this time ostensibly over the drying up of a salt lake in Iran’s East Azerbaijan Province. It is true that the local people are suffering from the damage that the lake’s gradual erosion has done to their economy, however the familiarity of videos such as the one below, showing grainy images of Iranian police shooting at protesters, who throw rocks in return, point to a general discontent with the ruling Ayatollah regime that boils just below the surface of the Islamic Republic.
The 1979 “Islamic Revolution” was the first case of a relatively young Islamist movement actually gaining dominion over an entire state. The subsquent deterioration of Iran was mirrored in the other Islamist “successes” in Afghanistan, Sudan, Gaza and large portions of Algeria, Yemen and Somalia. The totalitarian ideology that promises a return to the “glory days” of Islam through forced regression to a 7th-century civil society has to date yielded nothing but misery to those living under it. Yet, as this blog has been reporting, the ideology remains perhaps the most influential force in the Arab world, with its adherents looking increasingly likely to hijack the “Arab Spring” revolutions…
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