Afrah Jamal

Published Global Affairs / Dec 2017? The longest war is going according to plan; but whose plan exactly? Not Washington - bogged down in a never-ending nightmare. Or Kabul - besieged and battered, barely holding its head above water. Not Pakistan, a frontline state suffering blowback and living under the weight of America’s expectations - and uncalled for accusations. The dramatic shifts in the geostrategic dynamics are not reflected in Washington’s stance towards Islamabad nor are they inclined towards the multiplayer great game unfolding in the backdrop with Russians, Iranians, Taliban, Indians, Chinese, ISIS and its Coalition forces. Mission Rebuild Afghanistan In the backdrop are nations used as pawns to keep Cold War allies or emergent threats in check. On the side are non-state actors wielded as weapons to thwart ambitions and counter bigger threats like ISIS. And at the centre is a strategy that offers a patchwork quilt of something old, something new, something borrow...

Published by Global Village Space Under the Title "Pakistan must outline and work to achieve its own future for the region", with some adjustments / 31 May 2017 The media picked up on two things at the Arab-American Islamic summit held in May 2017. One that Pakistan was not mentioned even once. And the other was of course that Iran was - many times, in the most unflattering of terms. While the first has been seen a source of concern, the second should not really concern us. Yet it does. The new American President on his first visit to the holy land arrived with a speech that was on point and diabolically clever, rolling back all the vitriol and hate filled rhetoric that are ratings gold for his Presidency. He hit all the right notes and named all the nations either allied with the U.S. in the fight against terror or have been in the terrorists cross hairs at some point; all except one. Back home the deliberate oversight has been termed as a failure of Pakistan’s fore...

First Published in Global Affairs / May 2017 Former COAS Raheel Sharif (R.S.) is a rare bird. He did not ask for an extension - make a play for the throne, get embroiled in scandals, financial or otherwise, or walk away with the coveted title of a Field Marshal. It was a dignified exit; and a first in Pakistan. As COAS he was the cat’s pajamas. Then he got a job offer. And everything changed. Since then, laudatory reports regarding his achievements in counter-terrorism had given way to critical debates concerning his forthcoming appointment. One in particular devises a fear-mongering narrative from the General’s future prospects and needs some clarification. The post entails commanding a NATO styled, Saudi backed coalition of Muslim nations, Islamic Military Alliance to Fight Terror - IMAFT. And should he don the mantle of commander in chief - NATO - lite, it will be another first. Is there anything keeping the General from assuming charge of a coalition sponsored by the House ...

Published in Lead Pakistan / Feb 2017 Pakistan and Afghanistan find themselves at crossroads. Pakistanis can rattle off all the reasons they think they have qualified for Afghanistan’s gratitude starting from their help in liberating them from the Soviet occupation to hosting millions of displaced Afghans and training their security forces to name but a few. Their Afghan neighbors on the other hand keep a list of grievances nearby to trump any grand gestures made in the past 4 decades. Their relations may have soured over time but there are avenues of cooperation left open that can be explored. Overtures made by Pakistani State lately testify to their attempts at mending fences and the reciprocal moves by their Afghan counterparts may signal that peace and reconciliation may still be on the table. Pak COAS Qamar Javed Bajwa’s New Year phone call to Afghan leadership and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani’s invitation to visit make these important milestones. That momentum must not be ...

Published in Global Affairs / July 2016 Edition Pakistan made a troubling discovery in its backyard recently. Notwithstanding his mild mannered appearance, Kulbhushan Jadhav (sometimes spelt as Yadav) has been positively identified as an Indian national, a Commander in the Indian Navy with a preference for aliases. He is currently using the name Hussein Mubarak Patel. Initial interrogation had also brought to light his role as the ring leader of a large network of spies and saboteurs operating indiscriminately in Pakistan’s Balochistan province and the city of Karachi at the behest of the premier Indian Intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW). From the Pakistani vantage point Jadhav’s arrest qualified as an intelligence coup. The Indian reaction predictably was one of denial. Jadhav was immediately disavowed but in the face of compelling evidence, they grudgingly acknowledged him as one of their own even as they continued to maintain that he had retired from ...

Published in THE POST SEP 29, 2007 “It should never be thought that merely to listen to ideas we deplore in any way implies our endorsement of those ideas, or the weakness of our resolve to resist those ideas or our naiveté about the very real dangers inherent in such ideas”; Lee C. Bollinger, President Columbia University pointed out, as he launched into a 19 minute invective against Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad; the speaker for World Leaders Forum, held at Columbia University on 24 September 2007; thus sparking the controversy that Ahmadinejad had been expected to ferment. While these words illustrated the sentiments of the university administration, they were merely a sample of the brutal character assassination that followed soon after. Lee Bollinger may have been just a professor and the University’s President, as he put it but his diatribe lacked the finesse expected of an academics or the decorum exhibited by Americans on global platforms. He did, however, attack...