I participated in a contentious debate on the BBC at the last minute today with Owen Bennett-Jones, author of Eye of the Storm, who was hosting a show from Islamabad. Initially, I didn’t realize I was on with a perennially…
Sri Lanka Commentary
I have a piece on the Huffington Post this weekend on the supposed final offensive in the twenty-six year long civil war in Serendip that you can read here. Have a good weekend, there are a few hundred thousand internally displaced…
Old and New in “On the Grand Trunk Road”
I’ve just finished this spring’s reissue of Steve Coll’s On the Grand Trunk Road:A Journey Into South Asia. Written starting twenty years ago in the dying days of the Cold War and long before the “World was Flat,” Coll was…
A Lament for Pakistan
I have a piece this week on the Huffington Post on where Pakistan was and where it is or could be going. Read it here…
Today’s Military (The American Kind)
General John Abizaid, the former Commander of U.S. Central Command spoke at NYU’s Center for Law and Security on the primary challenges the United States Armed Forces face today and in the near term along with a host of experts…
The Islamist Revolution
I attended an event with Alastair Crooke, author of Resistance: The Essence of the Islamist Revolution and veteran EU Middle East diplomat at the New America Foundation here in Washington. The event was webcast on the The Washington Note and Crooke’s presentation was…