The Shelf
Mitchell D. Silber
Thursday, May 16, 2013
Since the brutal attack in Boston a few weeks ago, the word
terrorism, without being preceded by the word "cyber," unfortunately returned
to our lexicon. For those who have spent
the better part of the past decade obsessed by the al Qaeda terrorism threat,
there was much in Boston that looked very familiar.
Read More »
Pakistan Elections 2013
Colin Cookman and Andrew Wilder
Wednesday, May 15, 2013
Pakistanis went to the polls on May 11th to
participate in landmark national and provincial elections. Violent attacks by
the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) insurgency disproportionately targeted vocal
opponents of the TTP prior to the vote, and clashes between rival candidates continued
on election day itself. But despite
the threats and disputed results in some constituencies - particularly the
country's largest
city of Karachi - this appears to have been the freest and fairest election
in Pakistan since the country's first democratic national election in 1970. Its
legitimacy was enhanced by being one of the most widely contested elections in
Pakistan's history, with all major national and regional political parties
taking part in what appears to have been a genuinely competitive contest.
Read More »
state-building 101
Ashley Jackson
Wednesday, May 15, 2013
As of this year, Afghanistan
has experienced ten years of stabilization intervention, but what is there to
show for it? Marked by massive expenditure with little to no accountability, and
often marred by waste, stabilization in Afghanistan started out with arguably honorable
aims. However, as troops prepare to leave in 2014, what legacy will be left behind?
Read More »
Afghanistan post-2014
Mohammad Arif Rahmani
Monday, May 13, 2013
Afghanistan stands at a
crossroads. The reputation of our political leadership is under suspicion. Tens
of millions of dollars are said to have been received illegally from
intelligence agencies of both friends and foes. People are losing faith in the
state and the prospects of democracy. The year 2014 looms large in everyone's
mind, as does the Taliban's possible reemergence as a real power.
Read More »
Pakistan Elections 2013
Megan Reif, Nadia Naviwala
Friday, May 10, 2013
Recent election violence in
Pakistan has been called unprecedented. But Pakistan's 2008 elections were
bloodier. The electoral death toll in this election has crossed 100, but in
2008, over 150 were killed and 400 injured.
Read More »
Pakistan Elections 2013
Naveed Ahmad
Friday, May 10, 2013
Never in Pakistan's
checkered electoral history has a parliamentary term been completed and a smooth
transition taken place in the capital, as well as the four provinces.
Read More »
Pakistan Elections 2013
Beenish Ahmed
Friday, May 10, 2013
With just hours left before voters begin casting their votes for Pakistan's
next leaders, political posters are plastered across markets, convoys of
motorcycles and cars flying party flags clog major thoroughfares, and raspy-voiced
candidates make their final appeals to throngs of people.
Read More »
Pakistan Elections 2013
Shuja Nawaz
Thursday, May 9, 2013
Pakistan's upcoming elections on May 11 provoke both fear
and hope. The last time Pakistan held a reasonably free and fair election, in
1970, the country ended up splitting into two, as Bangladesh emerged out of the
ruins of a horrible civil war that led to Indian military intervention. This
time, the election has been marked by a violent campaign by the
Tehreek-e-Taliban of Pakistan against selected political parties, even while a
raging insurgency in the border region with Afghanistan is keeping some 140,000
troops of the Pakistan army fully occupied in a holding pattern. A nationalist
insurgency and sectarian and ethnic battles in Baluchistan have raised fears of
another "Bangladesh" in the making, though these may be exaggerated. Absent a robust civilian administration, the
prospects of the military's counter insurgency moving beyond the "hold" phase
to "build and transfer" are dim. Meanwhile, the United States needs a stable Pakistan,
among other things, to allow the Coalition to exit Afghanistan in an orderly
manner and to prevent the economic and political implosion of nuclear-armed
Pakistan: something that keeps leaders in the region and around the globe on
edge. Behind these complex issues, there is much to discover: both positive and
negative.
Read More »
Drones in Pakistan
Dawood I. Ahmed
Wednesday, May 8, 2013
Pakistan's
election hopefuls have expressed strong and vocal opposition to U.S. drone
strikes within the country.
Read More »
Pakistan Elections 2013
Shamila N. Chaudhary
Tuesday, May 7, 2013
There seems to be some
disagreement between Pakistan's extremists over participation in the May 11
elections. Pakistani Taliban spokesperson Ehsanullah Ehsan recently told
Pakistanis to boycott the elections because democracy is un-Islamic, while
Maulana Sami ul-Haq, a conservative cleric who runs a religious seminary that
trained many Afghan and Pakistani Taliban, said in a follow-up statement that voting is a religious obligation.
Read More »
diplomacy in Afghanistan
Gayle Tzemach Lemmon
Tuesday, May 7, 2013
When Amb. James Dobbins
arrives at the ground-floor offices of the State Department's Special
Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan he will find a depleted staff, a
moribund peace process and a mandate riddled with colossal diplomatic challenges.
Secretary of State John Kerry called today's state of affairs a "pivotal moment" for the two nations. But it is also a critical moment for U.S.
involvement in ending the conflict President Barack Obama once called the war
"that we have to win" and now wants only to "responsibly" wind down.
Read More »
Read More
A primer on the epicenter of global terrorism.
