- "In Afghanistan, Humor Finds Its Way in Lost Translation," New York Times, December 2012.
Funny
isn’t an adjective often used to describe Afghanistan. Yet to many Afghans, the
war and the foreigners waging it can present a surprising source of humor.
Afghans
around the country tell anecdotes about encounters with NATO troops. The best
of these are encapsulated, shared and sometimes aggrandized in the form of
half-funny, half-sad tales told over warm chai or at picnics. Sometimes told
with a laugh, sometimes told with a tone of bitterness, these stories tend to
be about cultural mishaps and miscommunication that, 11 years after the start
of the international intervention, still occur with alarming frequency.
- "The U.S. is abandoning its loyal friends in Afghanistan," Washington Post, December 2012.
The
United States has abandoned our most effective and loyal friends in Afghanistan
by deliberately failing to implement
the Afghan Allies Protection Act. In 2011, I served as the chief adviser on rule
of law for the International Security Assistance Force in Kabul (ISAF). I
witnessed the heroism and steadfast courage of our Afghan employees as they
resisted threats from the Taliban and from their own government. Now, as we
draw down and leave them vulnerable,
our government refuses to follow its own laws to save them. http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-us-is-abandoning-its-loyal-friends-in-afghanistan/2012/12/06/cc8b7416-38b5-11e2-8a97-363b0f9a0ab3_story.html
- "Kabul Sets Tax Breaks to Aid Economy," Wall Street Journal, December 2012.
KABUL—Afghanistan
is planning major tax breaks and incentives for investors ahead of U.S.-led
forces' withdrawal at the end of 2014, part of an effort to stem accelerating
capital flight, the country's finance minister said.
A
proposal drafted by the finance ministry and endorsed by President Hamid Karzai
would grant a 10-year tax break and provide free land to companies that invest in
Afghanistan over the next two years, Finance Minister Omar Zakhilwal told The
Wall Street Journal.
- ”Report on Progress Toward Security and Stability in Afghanistan,” U.S. Department of Defense, December 2012.
- “Anti-Corruption Measures: Persistent Problems Exist in Monitoring Bulk Cash Flows at Kabul International Airport,” Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, December 2012.
The
international community, including the U.S. government, has long held serious
concerns about the flow of cash out of the Kabul International Airport (KBL).
According to the Congressional Research Service, an estimated $4.5 billion was taken
out Afghanistan in 2011. While large cash movements are typical in Afghanistan because
it is a cash-based economy, these bulk cash flows raise the risk of money
laundering and bulk cash smuggling—tools often used to finance terrorist,
narcotics, and other illicit operations.
Recognizing
the seriousness of this problem, a civilian-military interagency working group
based at the U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan developed the “bulk cash flow action
plan” in 2010 to better regulate cash flow at KBL. That same year, the
Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (GIRoA) pledged to adopt and
implement regulations or laws within one year to govern the bulk transfers of
cash outside the country.
- "Will The Kurds Get Their Way?" The American Interest, December 2012.
The
turn of the 21st century marks a definite period of Kurdish awakening. This
social revolution is occurring separately within each of the four communities,
but also through trans-border activities that are increasingly bringing the
groups’ political consciousness together. It is a revolution that is very
likely to shake the geostrategic pillars of the Middle East to their
foundations.
In
some ways, the rising Kurdish wave resembles the somewhat more advanced Tuareg
wave in North Africa and the western Sahel. The Tuareg rising has already
destroyed the territorial integrity and political order of one state, Mali, and
threatens others. The Kurdish rising may very well do the same.
- "Delays at Chinese-Run Afghan Mines Raise Security Fears," Wall Street Journal, December 2012.
BAMIYAN, Afghanistan—Foreign investment in Afghanistan's
mining sector was meant to bring peace and prosperity. But here in Bamiyan
province, it has so far put locals out of jobs and fueled a spreading
insurgency.
For
decades, thousands of Afghans have dug for coal in the unregulated mines of
Bamiyan's Kahmard district, in a valley dotted with timber-framed entrances to
dangerous, narrow shafts. This summer, the Afghan government evicted these
squatters to make way for a Chinese consortium that has won one of the biggest
natural-resources concessions in a country that sits atop vast, largely
untapped mineral wealth.
- “Spinoff: The Syrian Crisis and the Future of Iraq,” The American Interest, January 2013.
There
is an unremarked paradox in the tumult of the contemporary Middle East. Syria
is an economically impoverished country of a little more than 20 million people
that has been politically stagnant until 23 months ago. Egypt, by contrast,
never socially at rest and with its ancient energies newly bestirred, is at
80.5 million people more than four times larger. Yet it is the carnage in
Syria, not the continuing multiparty political tightrope act in Egypt, that is
more likely to unleash a torrent of violence and instability throughout the
Middle East. Before it has run its course it could undo multiple existing
regimes and even alter the region’s post-World War I territorial boundaries. This
is because as a consequence of the Syrian uprising the fate of Iraq now hangs
in the balance and, with it, the fate of the Middle East.
- Abbas Al Mosawi and the Colours of Bahrain.
Abbas
Al-Mosawi learned his craft first under the tutelage of the Bahraini artist,
Ahmed Baqer. Later as a student in Cairo he was attracted to the impressionist
style of Sabry Ragheb, whom he considers to this day to be the prince of
painters. The sources for his work derive principally from the old souk of
Manama and its surrounding villages. Given the irreversible changes of the
urban and rural landscape, his paintings provide the viewer with the necessary
imaginative and aesthetic bridge to the past. Indeed such is the power of his
native Bahrain on his artistic output that it colours both literally and
figuratively his abstract paintings.
- “Pakistan in 2013,” House of Commons Library, United Kingdom, December 2012.
2013
will be another important year for Pakistan. Federal and provincial elections
will be held during the first half of the year. If, as seems increasingly
likely, the Pakistan People’s Party-led Government sees out its full term in
office and hands over to a civilian successor, it will be the first time in
Pakistan’s history that this has happened. But the political and economic
situation remains highly volatile and unpredictable. In addition, by the end of
2013 the coalition allies, led by the United States, are expected to have
withdrawn more of their combat forces from neighbouring Afghanistan – with
total withdrawal the following year. Pakistan’s policies and actions will be
pivotal in shaping the outcome there. Further, the run-up to elections in India
in 2014 could affect the fragile peace efforts once again underway between
these enduring rivals.
During
2013, the wider world will probably continue to view developments in Pakistan
primarily through the prism of Islamist militancy and the actions taken (or
not) to combat it by the Federal Government. This is understandable, but it is
crucial not to oversimplify the country’s politics by neglecting the many other
factors which shape its trajectory. This paper seeks to create that wider lens
on Pakistan. It begins by surveying the electoral landscape in Pakistan as 2013
draws near, before going on to assess the record in office of the Federal
Government, led by the Pakistan People’s Party, since 2008. The paper then
looks at Pakistan’s complex and often fraught relationships with other
countries since 2008, focusing specifically on the US, India, Afghanistan,
China, the UK and the EU. It also reviews development and humanitarian aid to
Pakistan since 2008. The paper ends with a summary of recent expert views of
Pakistan’s ‘possible futures’.
- “Representation Without Taxation! An Analysis of MPs' Income Tax Returns for 2011,” Centre for Peace and Development Initiatives and the Center for Investigative Reporting in Pakistan, December 2012.
- “Iraq in Hindsight: Views on the U.S. Withdrawal,” Center for a New American Security, December 2012.
A
year ago, all U.S. forces withdrew from Iraq, bringing to an end the nation’s “American
era” that began in 2003. Iraq rarely even makes the Western news these days.
During the presidential campaign, both President Barack Obama and Governor Mitt
Romney skirted quickly over the subject. Obama boasted about how he had ended
the war in Iraq, and the only point of contention between the two candidates
was over whether the United States should have kept troops in Iraq beyond 2011.
Wars
of intervention have essentially become wars of domestic communication. The
real victims are elsewhere – and seem not to count in the public discourse. The
Iraq war had unintended consequences that left over 100,000 Iraqis dead,
enabled the resurgence of Iran and tarnished the reputation of U.S. democracy
promotion. Yet there is now a temptation to assign the experience to history.
The American public exhibits no appetite for holding officials accountable for
the decision to go to war or for the mismanagement of the occupation. However,
now that the American era in Iraq has ended, the time is ripe
for a bipartisan effort to learn the right lessons about intervention. The
nation owes it to those Americans who volunteered to serve there – and to the
4,488 service members who gave their lives.
- “Central Asia Prepares for Post-2014 Afghanistan,” The Jamestown Foundation, December 2012.
On
December 4, Kazakhstan’s parliament and the Kazakhstan Institute of Strategic
Studies held a joint conference on the future of Central Asia–Afghanistan
relations. This conference was attended by representatives of Russia,
Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, including diplomats, researchers and political experts,
as well as the deputy speaker of the Afghan Parliament. As the International
Security Assistance Force (ISAF) is preparing to leave Afghanistan by 2014, the
security situation in this country continues to represent a serious challenge
to its neighbors, while the problem of drug trafficking, which originates on
Afghan soil, is unanimously understood as a transcontinental threat impacting
both Russia and Europe (Bnews.kz, December 4).
- “India and Pakistan's Afghan Endgames: What Lies Ahead?,” World Affairs Journal, December 2012.
In
1960, Aslam Siddiqui, an important figure in Pakistan’s Bureau of National
Reconstruction, wrote that because Pakistan faced simultaneous threats from
India to the east and Afghanistan in the west, Islamabad ought to seek “a
fusion of the two states of Afghanistan and Pakistan in some way or other.”
This
fusion, he believed, would provide “strategic depth,” filling two of Pakistan’s
needs. The first was physical space to defend against an Indian attack. Most of
Pakistan’s population centers and economic resources lay along the Indus River,
adjacent to the Indian border and vulnerable to a sudden Indian offensive. To
absorb such an attack, Pakistan would need to seek defense northward into
Afghanistan. It would not be difficult to acquire some influence. Afghanistan
has historically been dependent on Pakistani land for access to maritime trade
from the Arabian Sea, giving Islamabad a monopoly on most trade with Kabul and
influence over much of Afghanistan’s economic and political life.
The
second Pakistani need that “fusion” with Afghanistan would satisfy was
domestic, in the sense of ensuring Pakistan’s internal cohesiveness….
- “Central Asia's Stability Increasingly Compromised by Ongoing Grain Crisis,” The Jamestown Foundation, November 2012.
In
early September, the United Nations once again warned of the growing risks of
another global food crisis, following particularly bad harvests in the United
States, Russia, Ukraine and other grain-producing countries. These negative
developments have already led to a rapid erosion of grain reserves to their
lowest level since 1974. While the average volume of such reserves was
sufficient to ensure continued consumption within 107 days back in 2002,
today’s stocks would not last beyond 74 days, with consumption rates steadily
hovering above currently observed production levels. In October 2012, the
Rome-based UN agency the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) released the
results of its worldwide survey assessing the number of people suffering from
chronic malnutrition at more than 870 million, whereas the most vulnerable
populations continue to be those of the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa.
- “Five Truths About India,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, November 2012.
For
over sixty years, India, a low-income country occupying a sprawling geography
and serving as a home to a dizzying diversity of ethnic and linguistic groups,
has managed to survive—indeed, thrive—as a functioning democracy. Its political
system in particular has the capacity to confound even the most knowledgeable
and insightful Indian, so it should come as no surprise that for outsiders,
interpreting Indian politics can be downright daunting.
But
trying to fit India into neat categories to get a handle on the South Asian
behemoth misses much of the nuance at the heart of the Indian polity. For
instance, India’s politics have grown more regionalized, yet powerful forces of
centralization remain intact. Old caste divides have lost social relevance but
often thrive in the domain of politics. Five trends playing out in India today
highlight the tensions between continuity and change in the country.
- “Between the Times: India's Predicaments and its Grand Strategy.” Center for the Advanced Study of India, University of Pennsylvania, December 2012.
On
the eve of India’s founding, no one could have imagined how successfully it
would come to navigate the international system. At that time, there were
legions of skeptics who believed that the half-life of this new country would
be measured in years, perhaps decades at most. The question of when India would
split apart was one of the staples of public discussion going back to
Churchill’s celebrated remark, “India is a geographical term. It is no more a
united nation than the Equator.” Since then, legions of commentators believed
that it would be a miracle if India survived.
Today,
however, India’s unity is taken for granted. In one of the greatest feats of
modern history, India has built a cohesive nation despite incredible poverty
and diversity. India has done just as well in regard to its territorial
integrity. Yes, it lost one major war and it has lost bits and pieces of
territory, but India as a unified territorial entity has survived despite being
located in an extremely contested and unsettled regional environment. And, to everyone’s surprise, India has
managed, despite great material weakness, to protect its political autonomy.
- Afghanistan Index, Brookings Institution, December 2012. http://www.brookings.edu/about/programs/foreign-policy/afghanistan-index
- "US-Pakistan Relations and the ‘End-Game’ in Afghanistan," Institute of South Asian Studies, December 2012.
As
the rush towards the Afghan end-game intensifies, the United States and
Pakistan are back to mending their fences. After more than a year of frayed
relationship following the May 2011 raid that killed Osama bin Laden, the Salala
incident and the increased drone strikes, the two allies are on the road to
making amends to repair the relationship.
- “Talibanistan: Negotiating the Borders Between Terror, Politics and Religion.” Peter Bergen and Katherine Tiedemann, January 2013.
The
longest war the United States has ever fought is the ongoing war in
Afghanistan. But when we speak of "Afghanistan," we really mean a
conflict that straddles the border with Pakistan--and the reality of Islamic
militancy on that border is enormously complicated.
In
Talibanistan, an unparalleled group of experts offer a nuanced understanding of
this critical region. Edited by Peter Bergen, author of the bestselling books
The Longest War and The Osama Bin Laden I Know, and Katherine Tiedemann, these
essays examine in detail the embattled territory from Kandahar in Afghanistan
to Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province and Federally Administered Tribal
Areas. They pull apart the distinctions between the Taliban and al Qaeda--and
the fractures within each movement; assess the effectiveness of American and
Pakistani counterinsurgency campaigns; and explore the pipeline of militants
into and out of the war zone. Throughout, these scrupulously researched studies
challenge convenient orthodoxies. Counterterrorism expert Brian Fishman
criticizes the customary distinction between an Afghan and Pakistani Taliban as
being too neat to describe their fragmented reality. Hassan Abbas paints a
subtle portrait of the political and religious forces shaping the insurgency in
the Northwest Frontier Province, uncovering poor governance, economic distress,
and resentment of foreign troops in nearby Afghanistan. And Peter Bergen and
Katherine Tiedemann try to identify the real numbers of drone strikes and
victims, both militants and civilians, while disputing claims for their
strategic effectiveness.
These
and other essays provide profound new insight into this troubled region. They
are required reading for anyone seeking a fresh understanding of a central
strategic challenge facing the United States today.
