Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Junaid S. Ahmad
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Who’s afraid of Dr Naledi Pandor? Zionism, Empire, and the visa revoked in panic
There are occasions when state power reveals its insecurities with embarrassing transparency. The United States’ revocation of Dr Naledi Pandor’s visa—executed without reason, without process, and without even the courtesy of bureaucratic finesse—is one such moment. It is not a matter of administrative procedure. It is a symptom. A tremor…
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Imran Khan wasn’t overthrown — Pakistan was
From the barracks of Rawalpindi to the halls of Washington, a sordid alliance stalks the republic of Pakistan: a military caste addicted to power, a civilian class cowed into servitude, and a foreign patron ever ready to pull the leash. What unfolds is less a grand strategy than a tragicomedy:…
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The empire’s echo: Pakistan between Gaza and the great game
As Pakistan reignites its border war with Afghanistan, history repeats itself — empire’s old script plays again, with new actors and the same blood-soaked stage. The Pakistan–Afghanistan frontier burns once more. Over recent weeks, Pakistani airstrikes deep into Afghan territory and retaliatory Taliban assaults on border outposts have pushed the…
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Cold War 2.0: The empire’s last temper tantrum
The great lie of our time is that World War III is a looming possibility. Politicians whisper it with grave brows, think-tankers roll it out on PowerPoint slides, and journalists rehearse their “serious voice” to warn we teeter on the brink. But let’s drop the theatre. The war is not…
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Applause for ashes: Recognition, pacts, and the art of doing nothing while Gaza burns
The bombs fall in Gaza. Day after day, night after night. Schools collapse into dust. Hospitals—those sanctuaries of mercy—become morgues. Children, the most fragile units of human existence, are pulled from the rubble, their names never to be written on school registers. Water turns scarce, food impossible, electricity a rumor.…
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The generals and princes are cashing in while Gaza bleeds
Gaza is burning. Children are being buried beneath rubble, hospitals are starved of fuel, and the world watches in horror as one of the most grotesque spectacles of militarism in our time unfolds. And what are the region’s so-called leaders doing in response? Are they building ties to stop the…
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The NAM reborn: Non-Aligned monarchies and Pakistan’s mercenary generals
There are few spectacles as grotesque as Gaza under bombardment. But if anything can compete with it in sheer offensiveness, it is the sight of Pakistani generals dusting off their medals, tightening their waistlines, and flying off to Riyadh like underpaid mall cops called in to protect a billionaire’s parking…
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The theatre of hypocrisy: How Pakistan’s generals betray Gaza and Pakistan alike
It is hard not to retch when one hears yet another Pakistani defense minister, nearly two years into the televised genocide of Gaza, suddenly discovering his voice to call for “Muslim unity” against Israel. The timing is always exquisite: when the corpses of Gaza’s children are stacked too high for…
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Pakistan: The five who shamed the brass
Let us begin with a provocation, for nothing less will do: if courage had a capital in Pakistan, it would not be in Rawalpindi’s General Headquarters. It would be on the deck of a civilian vessel headed toward Gaza, with five Pakistanis—including former Senator Mushtaq Ahmed Khan—who have dared to…
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What would Muhammad do? The taboo question in the time of Gaza
It was once the darling slogan of liberal Muslims in the West, their talisman against suspicion, their get-out-of-Guantánamo-free card. In the shadow of 9/11, when Muslims were being strip-searched at airports, interrogated at borders, and rounded up in their neighbourhoods, Western Muslim leaders found themselves endlessly parroting this question. It…
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The spectacle of moral hypocrisy: When America condemns South Africa
Picture an empire so insecure that it hurls thunderbolts at a mid-sized African democracy for daring to think independently. That empire, draped in self-anointed moral authority, is the United States. Its newest villain? South Africa. In Washington’s theater of indignation, South Africa has been transformed from an ally recovering from…
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Ceasefires “R” Us
There was a time when the word “ceasefire” had meaning. It conjured up the faint possibility of respite, an exhausted silence after prolonged carnage, a breathing space for diplomacy, humanitarian aid, or simply for the burying of the dead. But today, thanks in no small part to the United States—and…
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More than meets the smile: Iran–Pakistan’s strategic chessboard
If you ever want to know what two countries really care about, don’t listen to the speeches. Watch what words they never quite say alone. In the case of Iran and Pakistan, one word keeps showing up as part of a suspiciously inseparable duo: “trade and security.” And when “security”…
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The Muslim World: A requiem
How does one speak of a “Muslim World” when the supposed collective is either silent, complicit, or supine in the face of genocide? When Muslims from Gaza to Kashmir, from Sudan to Syria, are being brutalized with impunity, and the so-called leaders of Muslim-majority states are either polishing boots in…
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The Zionism of the brass: Why Pakistan’s army won’t defend Gaza
They strut about with medals on their chests and missiles in the background, claiming to be defenders of the Muslim world, protectors of the faith, and guardians of the nation. They command one of the largest armies on Earth, sit atop a nuclear arsenal, and rule a state ostensibly founded…
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The Peace Prize farce: When tyrants nominate a tyrant
There are moments in world affairs so brazen, so jaw-droppingly cynical, that satire simply gives up and goes home. One such moment has arrived: the unlikeliest of duos—Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and Pakistan’s General Asim Munir—have found common cause in nominating Donald J. Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize. That’s…
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Zohran or Zion: The future of world order
They say history swings on a hinge—on moments that demand a reckoning, not a retweet. Today, we stand at such a crossroads. One path leads to ‘Zohran’: a world built on egalitarian liberation, where justice is not a marketing slogan but a lived reality, and where the commons are rescued…
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A mad dog and a muzzled empire: Israel, Iran, and the limits of strategic patience
There are moments in history when diplomacy dies with a whimper, not a bang. But this time, it may die with both. Israel, drunk on decades of unpunished aggression, has now hurled itself off the ledge of military recklessness, dragging its American enablers and the wider Middle East into yet…
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The silence of the sultans: Muslim regimes and the holocaust of our time
Tel Aviv is no longer content with turning Gaza into a graveyard—it now flies its missiles eastward, striking Iranian soil with the kind of psychotic bravado usually reserved for Bond villains and colonial empires on their last legs. Over the past year, Israel has escalated its shadow war on Iran…
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The empire’s playpen: Nukes, nationalism, and manufactured madness in South Asia
More than a month has passed since the deadly terrorist attack in Pahalgam, deep in the restive terrain of Indian-occupied Kashmir. Yet, the region has not exhaled. That attack was the spark; the explosion was narrowly averted—this time. Fighter jets scrambled, missiles were mobilized, and once again the world held…
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Gaza in the Himalayas: Modi’s fantasy war and the Kashmir proving ground
Over the past week, the world did not witness counterterrorism—it witnessed bloodlust masquerading as statecraft. On April 22, a deadly attack in Pahalgam claimed the lives of 26 Hindu tourists in Indian-occupied Kashmir. No group claimed responsibility, no investigation followed, no evidence was released. But New Delhi, undeterred by the…
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The Indo-Pak war: recklessness and diversion in the service of pharaohs
It began, as it so often does, with a blast in Indian-occupied Kashmir. A terrorist attack—brutal, tragic, and all too familiar—left carnage in its wake. Without missing a beat, the Indian government did what it has made into a political reflex: it pointed its righteous finger at Pakistan, evidence optional.…
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The art of distraction: War drums, dictatorships, and the dance of nuclear madness
What was feared has happened. India has launched military strikes deep inside Pakistan, and Islamabad claims to have retaliated in kind. The spark? A terrorist attack over a week ago in Indian-occupied Kashmir. As has become tradition, New Delhi wasted no time in pointing the finger at Islamabad, offering no…
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Kashmir and the spectacle of manufactured crises
It was an old script, dusted off and recycled with all the subtlety of a Bollywood B-movie plot: an attack on tourists in Pahalgam, Kashmir—tragic, condemnable, and as predictable as New Delhi’s response. Within hours, India’s government, with its reflexes honed more for propaganda than forensics, pointed a convenient finger…