As it becomes increasingly clear that Pakistan will likely play an important role in any negotiated settlement in Afghanistan, it is important to understand Pakistan’s motivations and strategy in South Asia. But in order to understand Pakistan’s government, we must also understand how average Pakistani’s view their country, it’s policies, its neighbors, and more.
(photo of Jackson Ikenberry next to Hachiko at Shibuya Station, Japan; photo credit: G. John Ikenberry) Sorry folks. This may be a bit inside for some of you — but I have this sort of weird, psycho connection with G. John Ikenberry, a professor of international relations at Princeton University.
I was pleased with how this discussion came out on WNYC’s The Brian Lehrer Show in which we discussed the secret military field reports recently made public by Wikileaks. Also on the program was New York Times chief Pakistan correspondent, Jane Perlez. A side note about the line I used.
(Two boys and a pup in a tub being pulled to safey in Taizhou City, Zhejiang Province, China; photo credit: Li Jinxiong, China Daily) The real story behind the picture above is that there have been devastating floods in several of China’s provinces — including Zhejiang Province and Henan Province.
This is a guest note by General Asad Durrani, who previously served as the head of Pakistan’s ISI, or Inter-Services Intelligence. Durrani later served as Pakistan’s Ambassador to the Federal Republic of Germany and to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
(Photo Credit: State Department) This post also appears at The Race for Iran. Iranian Petroleum Minister Masoud Mirkazemi’s visit to Turkey last week highlighted Turkey’s multifarious equities vis-a-vis Iran.
General Curtis LeMay was a tough, often brilliant, pugnacious deployer of air power — organizing the debilitating and destructive carpet bombing campaigns of Japan and later viewed by many as being a bit too trigger happy when it came to using nuclear weapons against the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
(Moon Over Paris, photo credit: Ben Rosengart; click image to make larger) Long-time TWN reader Ben Rosengart sent me three terrific shots this past week from three different windows he was housed in. I decided to post them one at a time. Above is part three, taken in Paris.
The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c
No matter how different observers have reacted to the massive dumping of classified documents by WikiLeaks on Sunday, one of the themes garnering the most attention was that of connections between the Taliban, al Qaeda, and Pakistan’s powerful Inter Services Intelligence (ISI).
