Foreign Policy Blogs

Wednesday's Tabs

1) Two female teachers were gunned down in northwest Pakistan. This is, obviously, an abhorrent crime, and the United States should do what it can to promote the rights of women in AfPak. But women’s rights alone are not a sufficient reason to continue the military effort there.

2) Croatia’s bid to join the EU just got more likely, after agreeing with Slovenia to send a border dispute to international mediators. It isn’t said often enough, but the European Union is the most successful supranational organization in modern political history.

3) The U.S. is working on a new governance ‘compact’ for Hamid Karzai—and one defense official says it “isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.”

4) The Egyptian government is targeting the niqab, which, to be accurate, isn’t a tradition of Egyptian-Islam, but rather comes from Gulf countries.

5) Abdullah Abdulllah is claiming Karzai’s victory to be “illegal.”

 

Author

Andrew Swift

Andrew Swift is a graduate of the University of Iowa, with a degree in History and Political Science. Long a student of international affairs, he is on an unending quest to understand the world better.