Nuclear Issues

Last weekend’s deadly attack on an international hospital in Afghanistan was a reminder of the terrible war that grinds on there, with Afghan civilians caught in the crossfire.

The United States' wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are unlikely to come to an end, even after the death of Osama Bin Laden. These wars which were initiated and continued based on the sacred and ideological aim of the complete destruction of world terrorism (Al Qaeda) will simultaneously provide the grounds for local and opposing forces to justify their resistance in the form of a sacred ideological war against foreign occupiers. In the case of a bilateral ideological war, with no possible winner, therefore the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, which have mostly local and regional roots, will not come to end in the near future.

"George W. Bush's presidency really was that bad — and the fact that Obama has largely followed the same course is less a measure of Bush's wisdom than a reminder of the depth of the hole he dug his country into, as well as the institutionalized groupthink that dominates the U.S. foreign-policy establishment."

"How much will the War on Terror define the new President’s agenda towards Pakistan, as it has President Bush’s? What will this mean for America’s broader policy toward the country, and what are the implications, if any, for India?"

The hundreds of thousands of ordinary Pakistanis euphorically chanting in the streets in support of Iftikhar Chaudhry, the suspended chief justice of the Supreme Court of Pakistan, demonstrate that Pakistan has outgrown Pervez Musharraf’s transitional leadership....

The premise of the Shiite Crescent assumes that states sharing common sectarian ties tend to form alliances and choose cooperation partners. But do they?

There is more to this unacknowledged war than merely emotion and history. As long as India and Pakistan remain hostile to each other , Afghanistan is strategically important to both.

"...the Bush administration's foreign policy rests on a deep misreading of contemporary world politics. Conducting foreign policy on the basis of flawed premises is like designing an airplane while ignoring gravity...."

As the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks become a more distant memory, many Americans comfort themselves with the thought that 9/11 was a freak accident or a 100-year flood.