Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Mansoor Qaisar
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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,…