In the aftermath of 2nd Anglo Afghan War (1879 – 1880) and decisive British military victory over Ayub Khan in the battle of Baba Wali just outside southern Afghan city of Kandahar, the British selected Amir Abdur Rehman as new Amir of Afghanistan, who in return not only ratified the Treaty of Gandamak but also promised to help British achieve all their geopolitical ambitions in the region. Due to its...
On 24th of April, 2021 the US president Joe Biden called Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish President, and informed him that US government would formally recognize and acknowledge the Armenian killings of 1915 - 23 by Ottoman Empire as genocide. The announcement came more than a century after the mass killings of Armenians by the Ottoman troops. According to the analysts, this declaration might open a new rift between the new...
After only a short episode of optimistic brouhaha, the situation in Afghanistan seems to be getting realistic, and, therefore, obnoxious. The prognostications of a peace deal between Taliban and the representatives of a republic system in the country are now figments of imagination. Taliban, looking at the exhausted international troops withdrawing, appear to be overzealous about the victory that they may never win. However, they seem to be gaining grounds...
After more than 40 years of war in Afghanistan, there is hope in some quarters that the longest war for the country and the US will come to an end and peace will prevail. The reason for this hope comes from the Istanbul conference. The conference was to take place on April 14 but was postponed to April 24 and then on May 5th and now to a date in...
After almost 20 tough years, the United States has realized it needs to rethink the political structure in Afghanistan or the state as a whole since it has failed to preserve a social contract. Or, looking at the scenario, it would be appropriate to say it was never the intention to build the Afghan state on a social contract. Rather, it was formed through international intervention as an exogenous project,...
Conversion to Islam: The process of Shi’ization of the Hazaras (Part 1) Since the theories described in the first episode do not paint a clear picture of the Hazaras’ Shia orientation, so now we try to look at it from a new angle that is the conversion of the Mongol Il-Khanids in Persia and its effects on the Hazaras. As the northern and eastern Khorasan was under the rule of...
Post 9/11 US-led state-building efforts in Afghanistan have not been able to strengthen political structure and resolve social issues, or they have never intended to do so. There is a possibility that these efforts were never directed to such a cause; rather, they were to give only an impression of state-building, while the US intervention in the country was to further the geo-political interests of the US in the region....
Last year, on February 29th, the US signed a peace deal with the Taliban which was hailed as a success by some and a surrender, capitulation, and defeat by the critics. What did it achieve for the two sides and the region and the country as a whole? First, a few words about the deal itself, was it a deal in good faith and with a genuine protagonist? From the...
