Courtesy: FreedomHouse2/Flickr
Simultaneous efforts to resolve the problem in Syria remain stymied even as more and more high level meetings and consultations take place. The more countries treat the situation as a proxy for political differences, the more it creates the conditions for a wider conflagration with an unpredictable outcome.
Courtesy: Open Democracy
The NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2014 should be done tactically so that it doesn't destabilize Pakistan. Despite having accepted Pakistani help in the past, the Taliban might empathize with Pakistani Pashtuns and spread the very secessionist tendencies which Pakistan’s Afghan policy was designed to prevent.
Courtesy: U.S. State Department
The setting for the third Indo-U.S. Strategic Dialogue is promising: a global shift of economic weight to Asia, U.S. military exhaustion and indebtedness to China and other factors call for a greater convergence in Indo-U.S. interests than ever before. It is essential then, to take bold decisions at the dialogue.
Courtesy: Secretary of Defense/Flickr
Pakistan’s refusal to re-open NATO supply routes into Afghanistan has made the country an instant pariah in the U.S. at the NATO Summit. The communiqué released confirms a withdrawal of 130,000 troops by as early as mid-2013. Can the remaining soldiers help maintain peace when a force much larger could not?
Courtesy: Ministry of External Affairs, India
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's recent visit to China, India, and Bangladesh is keeping with the U.S. pivot to Asia. The choice of countries has strategic significance for the U.S., where India is flagged as balancing the rise of China, and Bangladesh as a strategic base in the Bay of Bengal.
Courtesy: U.S. Department of Defense
An important take-away from the preliminary pact reached by Kabul and Washington is that unlike the 1990s, the Americans are not just packing their bags and leaving. This is good news in terms of regional stability, and the upcoming NATO summit may answer some questions this draft agreement raises.
What are the implications for India if Iran is attacked? How effective has the response been by gulf nations to their own protests? Ambassador Talmiz Ahmad, India’s former Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, discusses the dynamics of West Asia with Gateway House’s Alisha Pinto and Azadeh Pourzand.
The scope for any process on nuclear talks with Iran to founder on distrust, misunderstanding and political in-fighting in both Tehran and Washington remains formidable. Equally disturbing are the wider political realities. Can the upcoming talks in Istanbul launch a process that can, over time, lead to agreement?
Courtesy: PMO
Although political discourse around Iranian sanctions is binary and stark in Washington, the reality of India's actions within its bilateral framework with Iran is complex. India is engaged in an excruciating tightrope walk, and has to defend its choices and compulsions with ardour.
Given the immediacy of rising tensions around Iran’s nuclear programme, what can India and the U.S. do to resolve the issue? Gateway House’s Manjeet Kripalani talks to Ambassador Frank Wisner about the possibilities of a strike against Iran and its effects on the India-U.S. relationship.
