Vanda Felbab-Brown

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Confiscated captagon pills, Kafarshima, Lebanon, July 2022. Joseph Eid / AFP

MundoOriente Próximo

Over the past decade, the Middle East has been flooded with captagon. The drug, a mix of amphetamines and caffeine, has become especially popular in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, where laborers and partiers use it to stave off hunger and sleep. It has taken both countries by storm—along with the region as a whole. Twenty years ago, almost no one in the Middle East used captagon. Today, it is cheaper and more widely available in the region than alcohol.

Syria makes most of the world’s captagon, which is a crucial source of revenue for the country and its dictator, Bashar al-Assad.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAméricaMundoOriente PróximoInternacionalTerrorismo Internacional, , ,

The American killing by drone strike of Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansour, the leader of the Afghan Taliban, may seem like a fillip for the United States’ ally, the embattled government of President Ashraf Ghani. But it is unlikely to improve Kabul’s immediate national security problems, and may create more difficulties than it solves.

This raises doubts about the American approach — the so-called decapitation strategy — in carrying out such targeted killings against the Taliban leadership.

Commenting on the death of Mullah Mansour during his visit to Vietnam this week, President Obama said, “Mansour rejected efforts by the Afghan government to seriously engage in peace talks and end the violence that has taken the lives of countless innocent Afghan men, women and children.”…  Seguir leyendo »

Afghan National Army soldiers aarive outside of Kunduz, Afghanistan in September. (Najim Rahim/ASSOCIATED PRESS)

MundoAméricaMundoOriente Próximo,

The loss of the Afghan provincial capital Kunduz was a psychological shock to the Afghan people, a strategic and tactical defeat for both Afghanistan and the United States, and a tragedy for those at the Doctors Without Borders hospital there. Yet the shock may prompt essential changes. It is important to examine both Afghan and U.S. responsibility for the disaster, what is happening now and what needs to be done. President Obama’s decision Thursday to maintain existing U.S. force levels into next year was absolutely correct to achieve the goal he stated of “sustainable Afghan capacity and self-sufficiency.”

Kunduz, which has since been recaptured by Afghan forces, was more than just the first provincial capital to be taken by the Taliban; its fall was highly symbolic because it was the site of the Taliban’s last stand in 2001.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo,

There is good news from Afghanistan: Last week the parliament passed, and President Hamid Karzai signed, a much-improved election law that preserves the existence of an independent electoral complaints commission. Over the weekend Karzai signed into law another measure, approved by parliament several weeks ago, outlining how the vote will be held. Many have feared that next year’s election would be held under deeply flawed presidential decrees. The election will be the most important Afghan political development of 2014 — and an inclusive and accountable election process needs active support now from the United States and NATO.

The April election, which could be the first peaceful transfer of power in the history of Afghanistan, will be a major bellwether of success, or failure, in the United States’ longest war.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsia

For more than two decades, Nepal, a resource-rich, impoverished country wedged between China and India, has teetered between paralysis and upheaval. Its people have witnessed the transition, in 1990, from an authoritarian Hindu kingdom to a constitutional monarchy; the massacre of members of the royal family in 2001 by the heir to the throne; a decade-long civil war between Maoist insurgents and the government that ended in a faltering peace agreement in 2006; and the removal of the monarchy altogether in 2008.

Since the civil war ended, after the loss of more than 16,000 lives, a stalemate has ensued as each party caters to caste, class and ethnic divisions instead of national unity.…  Seguir leyendo »