SPY EYES ANALYSIS

India-Pakistan peace pessimists enjoyed another smug moment last week when the two countries violated the ceasefire agreement and in the subsequent series of killings martyred a total of 5 soldiers from the Pakistani and Indian armies. After the media outrage subsided. The details of the attacks became clearer. Indian defiance to the 2005 agreement on prohibition on construction of check posts near the Line of Control (LoC) prompted Pakistan to register official warnings. When they failed to elicit a response, Pakistan carried out cross-border firing that India claims caused civilian casualties. Soon afterwards, on January 6 th  a Pakistani soldier was killed when Indian forces crossed into Pakistani territory. Two days later, the Indian Army accused Pakistan for murdering and mutilating two of its soldiers, one of whom was beheaded. While political and military officials scurried to protest and deescalate tensions, another Pakistani soldier was killed on January 10 th . The l...

As another drama-queen-potential-savior explores the niche created by lack of justice and bad governance, we ask ourselves questions about this man’s origins and motivations. Qadri’s history is well known. Part of the Musharraff government, in 2006 he left for Canada and acquired a citizenship. Qadri is the co-founder of a social welfare organization ‘Minhaj-ul-Quran’, currently active in educational pursuits with offices in 80 countries at the moment. In 1991 Qadri also became one of the founders of Pakistan Awami Tehreek and got elected as MNA in 2002. Two years later however Qadri resigned in a dramatic fashion. Blaming the status quo, nepotism and corruption for the suffering of the common man, Qadri left the country in 2006 when his plea for reform fell on deaf ears. 23rd December 2012: Qadri pulled off a rally at the Minar-e-Pakistan much bigger than Khan’s tsunami or any other political or social group has. 2 million people turned up. That was enough to place him in the c...

Just two days after the US government imposed a new round of even more brutal sanctions on Iran’s economy, Saeed Jalili, Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council expressed his nation’s desire to hold talks with the P5+1 nations this January. Iran had shown interest back in October 2012 but decided to wait for the US presidential elections to happen. One then wonders why the United States decided to act antagonistically? Did America doubt Iran’s intentions so much that it felt the need for additional sanctions to deliver the final nudge to bring Iran to talks? History has witnessed the course of action US and its European allies have chosen when their efforts to engage with Iran have failed, namely sanctions. Recently however many dominant Asian powers have also agreed to resort to this method. America’s use of sanctions against Iran dates back to 1979. Over the years, it has refined the sanctions to target Iran’s nuclear and missile technologies as well as all t...