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Umer Farooq

Umer Farooq

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Dissecting The Pakistan-Iran Relationship

The Urdu language has produced three great poets—Ghalib, Allama Iqbal and Faiz Ahmed Faiz. All three have written in the Persian language. In fact,...

25.04.2024 10

The Friday Times

Umer Farooq

Democracy As A Security Imperative

I can pinpoint Benazir Bhutto’s rise as political leader in the wake of her 1986 historic welcome at Lahore Airport, as the time when I started to...

18.04.2024 10

The Friday Times

Umer Farooq

An Iran-Israel War Would Destabilize Already Fragile South Asia

The evolving geopolitical environment in the Middle East points towards the possibility of a wider conflict. What are the lessons for Pakistan’s...

15.04.2024 10

The Friday Times

Umer Farooq

The Cancerous Ecosystem Of Terror On Pakistan's Western Border

Pakistani society is faced with a potent and multifaceted terror threat from its western border. The threat itself cannot be summed up simply by...

12.04.2024 60

The Friday Times

Umer Farooq

This Is Not The Last Time We Will Hear About The Islamic State In Khorasan

IS-K now poses a regional security threat to all of Afghanistan’s neighbors, including Pakistan, Iran, the Central Asian States and China. This is...

27.03.2024 8

The Friday Times

Umer Farooq

Pakistan Needs National Consensus

Our entire social and political order is indebted to Captain Ahmed Badar—a young officer in the Pakistan Army who laid down his life while fighting...

23.03.2024 10

The Friday Times

Umer Farooq

What Happens If Russia Decides To Use Nuclear Weapons In Ukraine?

On November 7, 2022, the Foreign Minister of Pakistan, Bilawal Bhutto unequivocally criticized Russian President Vladimir Putin’s repeated threats...

11.03.2024 10

The Friday Times

Umer Farooq

Minerals economy

AS the dust settles from the recent elections and the formation of government, it’s clear that the previous coalition is taking the reins of power....

07.03.2024 100

Dawn

Umer Farooq

Pakistan's Ongoing Battle With Extremism

In Pakistan, terrorism and militancy is mutating itself into something much more dreadful.  A life threatening situation recently developed in a busy...

04.03.2024 9

The Friday Times

Umer Farooq

The Power Of The Clergy And The Challenge Of Political Modernity

It was sometime in mid-1994 that Justice Saad Saood Jan invited me to his chamber in the newly constructed Supreme Court Building in Islamabad. I was...

26.02.2024 10

The Friday Times

Umer Farooq

Is The Military's Interventionism In Politics Now Too Dangerous To Be Continued?

What part of the military's role in Pakistan’s political system makes the system dysfunctional? Or what part of the military's role brings the...

14.02.2024 30

The Friday Times

Umer Farooq

The Hollowing Out Of State Capacity In Pakistan

The Pakistani state’s capacity to deliver services—health, education, security and other civic and social amenities—to its masses has been...

10.02.2024 20

The Friday Times

Umer Farooq

The Military Establishment's Hardheadedness Will Lead Pakistan To The Wilderness

On the basis of available evidence, we can safely conclude that Imran Khan has emerged as the third political leader in Pakistan’s history who has...

31.01.2024 6

The Friday Times

Umer Farooq

We Will All Pay The Price For America's Follies

In 2009, when I was working as the Islamabad correspondent for a Karachi based political magazine, I was asked by my editor to work on a story about...

28.01.2024 10

The Friday Times

Umer Farooq

Pakistan Has No Need For Macho Men

Bilawal Bhutto is the complete opposite of Imran Khan: Khan was aggressive as a political leader, at least when he was a free man. Bilawal Bhutto...

24.01.2024 50

The Friday Times

Umer Farooq

The Fear Of Deterrence Failure Governs Pakistan's Security Paradigm

Pakistan is perhaps a unique country insofar that it has faced preemptive strikes or felt the fear of a pre-emptive strike from countries as diverse...

19.01.2024 20

The Friday Times

Umer Farooq

Maulana Fazlur Rehman's Mission To Rein In The Afghan Taliban

Maulana Fazlur Rehman is the quintessential opportunist of Pakistani politics. His opportunism fits ideally with the pragmatism of Pakistan’s part...

15.01.2024 10

The Friday Times

Umer Farooq

Are Pakistan And India Engaged In A Full Fledged Arms Race?

The Indian subcontinent's military history is littered with situations where the introduction of new weapon systems has caused military instability...

08.01.2024 10

The Friday Times

Umer Farooq

2023 Was Haunted By Pakistan's Foreign Policy Failures

One of the most damning failures of Pakistan’s foreign policy in the year 2023 is the utter helplessness of the security establishment to compel the...

28.12.2023 8

The Friday Times

Umer Farooq

Pakistan's Foreign Policy Catch-22 In The Sino-American Rivalry

The American strategic community and foreign policy elites have formulated a new strategic concept to deter China’s aggressive military posturing in...

19.12.2023 10

The Friday Times

Umer Farooq

Taking Stock Of Pakistan's Security Landscape

Pakistan’s military and security doctrine continues to be specifically focused on tackling the internal enemy—terrorists, militants and...

16.12.2023 8

The Friday Times

Umer Farooq

What Can We Learn From Bangladesh's Success In Family Planning?

According to World Bank estimates, the Global Fertility Rate (TFR) of women has decreased from about 5 births per woman to 2.4. However, progress in...

12.12.2023 10

The Friday Times

Umer Farooq

The Post 9/11 Consensus Has Stretched Too Far

US foreign policy elites are compulsively addicted to exaggerating the threats to American security that exist around the world. This is not a recent...

08.12.2023 10

The Friday Times

Umer Farooq

Our Dysfunctional Politics Will Squander Away Pakistan's Demographic Dividend

Pakistani society is experiencing an advantage in demographic terms that economists dub the “demographic dividend,” a phenomenon which is often...

05.12.2023 8

The Friday Times

Umer Farooq

The War In Gaza Is Changing The Muslim World

The Western world is unequivocal in its support of Israel in the ongoing Gaza conflict. This much has been clearly demonstrated, when Western...

30.11.2023 20

The Friday Times

Umer Farooq

The Role Of Religion In The Failures Of Family Planning

The military government of General Pervez Musharraf started work in 2002 on a plan to co-opt the country's religious clergy at the grassroots level...

27.11.2023 5

The Friday Times

Umer Farooq

Public Emotion In The Age Of Turbulent Geopolitics

It is strange to see the American and British ambassadors conducting normal diplomatic business in Pakistan. They are rather conducting politically...

21.11.2023 10

The Friday Times

Umer Farooq

Explaining The Failure Of Population Planning In Pakistan

Over the last six decades, Pakistan has witnessed four military governments, and the political situation has remained uncertain and in flux. We as a...

17.11.2023 100

The Friday Times

Umer Farooq

Does Population Growth Imperil National Security?

It has become fashionable in Pakistan’s political circles to speak about the link between the country's exponential rate of population growth and...

13.11.2023 20

The Friday Times

Umer Farooq

Israel's Brutality In Gaza Will Sway Hearts And Minds Across The Muslim World

Few days ago, I got the chance to discuss the Gaza situation with a group of teenage female students. Let me describe the persona of these female...

10.11.2023 10

The Friday Times

Umer Farooq

Sheikh Rasheed Makes A Valid Point About May 9

I have always felt a deep-seated repulsion towards Sheikh Rashid’s style of politics. In him, I have always seen a clownishly non-serious...

27.10.2023 8

The Friday Times

Umer Farooq

The Folly Of Electoral Engineering

Why would the establishment rig the electoral process for a person, from whom it perceives a threat in the first place? Apart from political...

24.10.2023 8

The Friday Times

Umer Farooq

The Afghan Taliban's Suicide Squads

Modern military organization is a western invention. Drills, synchronized physical training and battalions as a basic unit of organizational structure...

19.10.2023 7

The Friday Times

Umer Farooq

The Taliban's Rising Fortunes

The Taliban regime in Kabul doesn’t face any significant military threat to its survival in Afghanistan. It is militarily and politically, largely...

09.10.2023 10

The Friday Times

Umer Farooq

TTP Poses More Formidable Threat With American Weapons

Giulio M. Gallarotti, Professor of Political Science at Wesleyan University, wrote a book in 2021 titled “The Power Curse”—in which he outlined...

27.09.2023 4

The Friday Times

Umer Farooq

The Anti-Military Melodrama Of Pakistan's Politics

In a political environment where anti-military posturing used to pay political dividends, Pakistan’s political elite’s mindset is fossilized. To...

16.09.2023 30

The Friday Times

Umer Farooq

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