Asia Times: For the US, it makes more sense to allow India to continue developing Chabahar port than for China to ‘hijack’ yet another strategically important port — A port in Chabahar, Iran’s southernmost city, was exempted by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo from sanctions, which he called “the toughest ever put in place”, in
A Special Commentary by Michael Hughes
Eisa Khan Ayoob Ayoobi via The Globe Post: The National “Unity” Government (NUG) was formed through a power-sharing deal to harmonize and protect the society. But in reality, it has emerged as a tribal monocracy and just a facade, plagued by disunity and ethnonationalism. As the head of NUG, Ashraf Ghani, since his illegitimate rise to power,
Michael Hughes: Afghan CEO and co-leader Abdullah Abdullah put forth the dubious proposition that the Trump administration’s South Asia strategy is working because without it the situation would be much worse. In the first place, Abdullah cites an unprovable counterfactual that can be employed to support any claim regardless of empirical results. Moreover, there is plenty
Eisa Khan Ayoobi via Al Jazeera: The NUG is struggling with containing the Taliban and addressing internal divisions – [Ghani’s] intra-Pashtun clan politics seems to have made reaching out to the Taliban more difficult. The Taliban leadership are Durrani Pashtun from Kandahar who take pride in being the descendants of “conventional” Afghan rulers like Ahmad Shah Durrani.
The National Interest: Kabul is a democracy in name only. Many non-Pashtuns see the political integration of the Taliban as an intra-Pashtun reconciliation process—not all-Afghan—that will deepen the Pashtunization of the power structure under Ghani, helping consolidate the ethnic group’s dominance. Under the national unity government agreement , Afghanistan was to have convened a loya jirga
Michael Hughes: New military commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan Austin Miller on his first day on the job signaled that he would continue America’s stale strategy which itself is a recipe for perpetual conflict. However, there are some so-called strategists who have accomplished the impossible by concocting ideas even worse than the one that has
Haroun Mir via Asia Times: India’s mishandling of local Afghan politics over the past 17 years has significantly reduced its influence among major political parties in Afghanistan. While the Afghan people continue to appreciate its contributions to the reconstruction and development of the country, its traditional allies who fought against the Taliban in the 1990s have
Brad Taylor via Bloomberg: Erik Prince thinks 6,000 mercenaries can do what 110,000 troops could not. That’s a deadly mistake. Taking a close look Blackwater’s role in Iraq shows why: profit over policy. While the company was initially formed with vetted Navy SEALs, over time the need to ramp up operations led to the firm
Michael Hughes: Afghanistan for at least the fifth time in the past eight years has experienced a “Tet-like” offensive – that is, if you believe military pundits, scholars and reporters who often cannot resist historical analogies even if it comes at the expense of true clarity. This is not to say the siege of Ghazni