US President Donald Trump and Chinese Vice Premier Liu He, sign the China-US phase-one economic and trade agreement in a ceremony at the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC, January 15, 2020. The signing ceremony of the China-US phase-one economic and trade agreement at the East Room of the White House in …
Continue reading “Trump, the deal maker, blinks before China”
The Cold-War hypothesis that the Soviet Union was hoping to “wet its toes” in the Indian Ocean was in reality an extension of the geopolitical construct known as the “Anglo-Russian Question” that was written about by Lord Curzon, onetime viceroy of British India (1899-1905). We now know that the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan was due …
Continue reading “Russians are coming — to the Indian Ocean”
Satellite images show extensive damage to Ain Al Asad air base in Iraq which was hit by Iranian missiles on Jan 7, 2020 President Trump’s credibility is so low that it is difficult to contest the perception that he blundered into the recent confrontation with Iran by ordering the killing of Qassem Soleimani, the head …
Continue reading “Iran: Nothing is forgotten, nothing is forgiven”
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei leading the prayer before the coffin of Qassem Soleimani, Tehran, Jan. 6, 2020. To his right, President Hassan Rouhani, Speaker of Majlis Ali Larijani and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Commander Gen. Hossein Salami. A new dynamics is forming in the week since the assassination of the charismatic Iranian …
India-Iran Joint Commission meeting co-chaired by Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif (L) and Indian counterpart S. Jaishankar (R), Tehran, December 22, 2019 Sometimes a crisis is needed to judge the efficacy of a country’s regional policies. The US-Iran confrontation is one such moment for Delhi. In retrospect, the India-US meeting of foreign and defence ministers …
Biographies stand apart as literary genre for three reasons. One, they are a branch of history and yet are literary works in their own right. Two, biography is a craft rather than art where general rules of testing evidence apply. Three, importantly, reading a biography can be an intensely personal journey as it holds the …
Twenty years ago, on December 31, 2019, resigning Russian President Boris Yeltsin (R) tapped then Prime Minister Vladimir Putin (L) to be his successor. When I left Moscow after completing my second assignment in the Embassy at the end of 1989, I never imagined that I was leaving the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics for …
Debris at the headquarters of Iran-backed Kataib Hezbollah militia after the US airstrike, Qaim, Iraq, December 30, 2019 The “precision defensive strikes” by the United States at five targets of Iran-backed Kataib Hezbollah militia in Iraq and Syria on Sunday night can be seen as a new vector of Washington’s “maximum pressure” approach to Tehran. …
Continue reading “US reminds Iran of red line on Iraqi turf”
Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan received Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan in Islamabad on Dec.26, 2019. The one-day visit to Islamabad on December 26 by Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan bin Abdullah aimed at a reset of the Saudi-Pakistani relationship. What emerges is that Saudis are going the extra league …
Continue reading “Saudi placates Pakistan. What about India?”
Libyan National Army forces commanded by Khalifa Haftar prepare to advance to Tripoli, November 2019, File photo. Libya’s call seeking military assistance from Turkey and the latter’s prompt announcement on Thursday of its readiness to meet the request as early as next month is no doubt a carefully choreographed sequence of events. Tripoli and Ankara …
Continue reading “Eastern Mediterranean is big enough for Turkey, Russia”
