Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Mansoor Qaisar
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Sovereignty without consent: Afghanistan’s Taliban and the limits of control
Five years after storming back to power, Afghanistan’s Taliban government wants the world to see a settled fact: a state that has outlasted predictions of collapse, kept its currency stronger than most of the region’s, and sat across the table, however unhappily, from neighbors who once swore they’d never deal…
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The first Middle East alliance that doesn’t need Washington’s permission
Sometime this past week, an Iranian parliamentary official told a Lebanese television channel that Tehran had received an invitation to join the Mecca Accord. No signature, no letterhead, no confirmation from Riyadh, Ankara, or Islamabad — and Iran’s own foreign ministry has responded with the kind of calculated ambiguity that…
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The strait that broke Washington’s illusion of control
When the United States and Israel opened their war on Iran on 28th February by assassinating Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, the calculation in Washington was simple: overwhelming force would force capitulation. Nearly six months later, that calculation lies in the waters of the Strait of Hormuz, where a tugboat sits…
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Iran’s supreme leader is back in control. That may be why diplomacy with Washington just collapsed
The 60-day window created by the Islamabad Memorandum expired on Monday with no permanent agreement between the United States and Iran. The 14-point framework, brokered principally by Pakistan with Qatar’s involvement, was signed on 17 June in an attempt to convert a fragile ceasefire into something durable. It covered the…
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After Mecca: The rise of a new Middle East security order and Iran’s strategic dilemma
The signing of the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement by Saudi Arabia, Turkiye and Pakistan on 7 August may eventually be remembered as more than another defence pact in a region already crowded with military partnerships. It could mark the moment when three influential Muslim powers concluded that the old security…
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Abraham offered normalisation. Makkah offers security
There’s a striking irony sitting inside this year’s diplomacy. Back on May 25, Donald Trump publicly pushed Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Pakistan, Turkiye, Egypt and Jordan to join the Abraham Accords en masse — part of a wider attempt to reshape the region while he negotiated an end to the war…
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The Makkah pact is not a Sunni NATO — the Middle East is testing a security order of its own
It took barely 48 hours for the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement to run into the question that will ultimately decide what it becomes: a historic security arrangement, or just another ambitious regional declaration. Two days after Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and Pakistan signed the pact on 7 August, Yemen’s Houthis said…
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Walking the tightrope between Tehran and Riyadh
Donald Trump threatened Iran with another strike, then called it off within hours — at the request, he said, of Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar. He now says talks resume today. Tehran says the opposite: no negotiations are under way, and it isn’t even Iran that asked for the…
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Beyond a ‘Muslim NATO’: Pakistan and the Middle East’s Emerging Security Order
For decades, I watched Pakistan’s military relationship with the Middle East unfold largely away from the headlines. Pakistani officers trained Gulf forces, pilots joined joint exercises, advisers worked alongside Arab governments, and troops were periodically stationed in Saudi Arabia. Islamabad was an important security partner—but rarely the centrepiece of the…
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Why Pakistan must choose active neutrality in the Iran-US war
A war is entering Pakistani homes right now. Not through headlines, but through the electricity bill, the bus fare, the price of vegetables at the local market. Wars in the Middle East rarely stay confined to the countries that start them — their consequences travel through oil pipelines, shipping lanes,…