The Singh-Zardari luncheon was more productive than many expected. But the bonhomie will eventually run into stark political realities. Although the timing was coincidental and neither man professes the Christian faith, it was appropriately symbolic that Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari broke bread in New Delhi on Easter Sunday. […]
The curious timing of the bounty on Hafiz Saeed raises the issue of whether U.S. policies toward New Delhi and Islamabad are in sync. If anything, the $10 million bounty the Obama administration offered last week for information leading to the capture and arrest of Hafiz Muhammed Saeed, a high-profile jihadi leader in Pakistan, is […]
This week, the WHO upheld its current guidelines in relation to use of hormonal contraception and women living with HIV. President Obama released his administration’s budget request for 2013, with some surprising news for US global heath policy. Finally, polio eradication efforts in Pakistan have been hamstrung by government health care and regulatory incompetency […]
The United States (US) Committee on Foreign Affairs is set to convene a congressional hearing on Wednesday (February 8), for an exclusive discussion on Balochistan. The extraordinary event has generated great interest among followers of Pakistan-US relations, as the allies’ mutual relationship seems to be deteriorating. The powerful House of Representatives committee oversees America’s foreign assistance […]
Part 1 – Many Barrels of a Gun South Asia is often described as the most dangerous place on earth and the most promising emerging market – both in the same breath. The year 2011 illustrated in ample measure the implausible irony. The biggest international story of the year, according to The Associated Press’ annual […]
The Foreign Policy Association has asked the blog team to write year-end summaries and even provided a nice little template for us to follow. So, without further ado: Summary of the Past Year What an extraordinary year 2011 has turned out to be. The U.S. appears to have successfully navigated a year of extreme turbulence […]
It’s called a ‘murder-for-hire’ sting, a standard law enforcement ploy designed to help the criminal find the very worst in his nature and act on it. But sting operations come with their own risks as well as rewards—and attorneys know that ‘entrapment’ can be a strong defense. . .
Informants are like sharks, scouring the underworld for opportunities and targets the feds can use as springboards to career-making cases. It’s the informant’s job to find two sticks (agent and opportunity), to rub them together vigorously, and to blow gently on the sparks of criminal enterprise.
Think about this as well….the ‘downpayment’ for the ‘hit,’ the100k wired to the US undercover bank account is enough to trigger a case for conspiracy, but it still doesn’t prove that the Iranian government was driving the bus. To do that, US authorities must establish a link between the owner of the account in the UAE — or the owner/s of an account held by an international financial institution with correspondent branches/banks around the world — and the government of Iran.
This is a critical point–one that could defuse the Obama Administration’s claim that ‘senior officials at the highest levels of the Iranian government’ were tied to the assassination plot and challenge the call of senior US officials for alterations to current foreign policy, in the US and abroad, toward Iran. If US authorities cannot prove that this was something more than a plot formulated by a small group of non-state actors, the President, the Secretary of State, DEA and the FBI have some explaining to do. . .
In his critically acclaimed book on the Indian Ocean last year, author Robert Kaplan warned that with growing Sino-Indian rivalry, the “the Indian Ocean and its adjacent waters will be a central theater of conflict and competition.” It seems that Kaplan’s prophetic claim was made none too soon. Last week, an editorial in the Global […]
Speaking of modern challenges, during a Congressional hearing, Adm. Mike Mullen made some damning accusations of the Pakistani government’s role, particularly the ISI, in some serious attacks on American targets: The remarks by Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of staff, represented the strongest U.S. criticism to date of the long-suspected ties between […]
Two years and one conviction later, Mumbai was once again rocked by three serial bomb blasts last month (apparently to mark the 26/11 convict Ajmal Kasab’s birthday). Though smaller in comparison to the 26/11 terrorists attacks that killed some 166 people during a three day virtual siege on the city, the blasts on 13 July […]
Courtesy: Dawn.com A veteran diplomat, Ms Wendy Chamberlin was serving as the US ambassador to Pakistan when terrorist struck the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. A former High Commissioner of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), Chamberlin is currently the president of Middle East Institute, a prestigious think-tank […]
Terrorist violence has once more ripped through Mumbai, India’s largest city and its commercial hub. Three bomb blasts, exploding over a span of 30 minutes in central and south Mumbai during the evening rush hour, yesterday killed at least 18 people and injured more than 130. The bombings are the latest in a string of […]
President Obama’s announcement of far larger and more accelerated withdrawals of U.S. forces from Afghanistan than many had expected affects Indian security interests and the U.S.-India relationship in significant ways.
Under the resumed dialogue process, the Foreign Secretaries of Pakistan and India met in Islamabad, on 23-24 June 2011 for bilateral talks on Peace and Security including Confidence Building Measures (CBMs), Jammu and Kashmir and promotion of friendly exchanges. In India –Pakistan relations, where atmospherics are as important as actual diplomatic agreements, the meeting was […]
Last week the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a regional security body with a total population of 1.5 billion people, held a 10th anniversary summit in the capital of Kazakhstan, Astana. The original “Shanghai Five” was formed in 1996 comprised of China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan. In 2001 when Uzbekistan joined the pack, it became […]