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Belief, borders and bombs: What long-term instability in Iran means for Pakistan

Kabir · March 4, 2026 · 3 comments

An important article in DAWN by Zia ur Rehman:

Zia ur Rehman is “a journalist and researcher, who writes for The New York Times and Nikkei Asia, among other publications. He also assesses democratic and conflict development in Pakistan for various policy institutes”

Some excerpts:

Islamabad and Tehran share a 900-kilometre border that has long been vulnerable to militant activity, smuggling networks, and sectarian spillover. Pakistan is also home to an estimated 15 to 20 per cent Shia population, one of the largest outside Iran. Many in this community look to Tehran’s clergy and leadership for religious guidance and, at times, political support.

Experts and Pakistani security officials warn that instability in Iran could increase cross-border movement by armed groups and inflame sectarian tensions within Pakistan’s already polarised society.

Continue reading Belief, borders and bombs: What long-term instability in Iran means for Pakistan

Modi Puts India Firmly in the Israel-US Camp

X.T.M · March 4, 2026 · 6 comments

Modi’s strong support for Israel – and refusal to condemn the Israel-U.S. strikes on Iran, a long-time friend of India’s – have “diminished India’s stature in the eyes of the world.”

Journalist Bharat Bhushan wrote in Deccan Herald that with the recent visit, Modi has put India “firmly in the U.S.-Israeli camp.”

That is not a space that India should be in if it is hoping to lead the Global South, especially in the context of Israel’s continuing war on Gaza and the latest Israel-U.S. military strikes on Iran.

On Whose Side Is God?

X.T.M · March 3, 2026 · 65 comments

The Wrong Question About Barbarians

Omar’s excellent piece raises the question of barbarians. I want to raise a harder one: whose side is God on? I ask this not as theology but as military analysis. Because the planners of Operation Epic Fury appear to have assumed the answer is obvious; and that assumption may be the central miscalculation of this war.

Isfahan: A Rich History and Unique Tourist Attractions - Persis Collection — *Barbanians*

The Pahlavist Map of Iran

The Pahlavists who helped guide this operation are, broadly speaking, secular liberals. Their Iran is Tehran’s northern suburbs, Los Angeles, Paris. Their model of the enemy is a man like themselves: attached to life, afraid of death, protecting assets and family and position.

Rational actors in the economic sense. You remove the leader, you remove the fear, the system collapses. This is a coherent theory of change. It just happens to be wrong about the specific civilization it was applied to.

Iran faces a pivotal moment. Can a tired regime contain a fresh wave of ... — Pretender to the Peacock Throne

The Gift of Martyrdom

Shia Islam is not organised around the fear of death. It is organised around the embrace of honourable death as the supreme spiritual achievement. Karbala is not a trauma to be processed; it is a template to be repeated. Husayn did not miscalculate when he rode into the plain knowing Yazid’s army outnumbered him. He made a theological choice.

The willingness to die without surrendering is not a bug in the Shia operating system. It is the entire point of the operating system. When you assassinate a Supreme Leader who has spent forty years framing his rule in exactly these terms, you do not break the system. You hand it the most powerful gift available: a martyr. Khamenei is now Husayn. The Americans gave him that.

Ashura Mourning Procession in Karbala, Iraq by students. - Islamic ... — *Yá Husayn*

On Sky Gods and the Human Spirit Continue reading On Whose Side Is God?

Allama Iqbal’s Dream Fulfilled; West Pakistan Defends India Against the Barbarians..

Omar Ali · March 2, 2026 · 41 comments

Since the world has been set alight and everyone has a theory, I will put out my pet theory and invite comments. In 1930 Allama Iqbal (supposed father of the idea of Pakistan) proposed a consolidated Muslim state in Northwest India as a solution to the problem of Muslim Nationalism in India. The part that is relevant to us today is his claim that such a state will defend India against the Barbarians to its West (his words were: “the North-West Indian Muslims will prove the best defenders of India against a foreign invasion, be that invasion one of ideas or of bayonets. “).

Iqbal, being a romantic Islamist in an age when the British Empire seemed a permanent fact of life had confused ideas about many things, and his vision of a Northwest Muslim state was as confused and romantic as any of his other dreams, but in this case he hit on something real.. Pakistan is the buffer that protects India from the Middle Eastern snakepit. Of course, it is also an example of the same snakepit extending into the Indian subcontinent, but it is worth remembering that India at one point was almost entirely colonized by Islalmicate invaders from the Northwest. Now that invasive colonial culture is concentrated in Pakistan; and with the war with Afghanistan, it is now directed against the very people it once idealized.

So my point is that Indians should thank Jinnah for his service. They now have a fighting chance of escaping the Middle eastern cannon fodder trap and becoming a successful Asian country.
Choose wisely. Let Pakistan be more in the Middle East. Be more Asian.

And for Pakistan the answer is also the same. Try to be more Indian, less Middle eastern. But our road home may be convoluted. Even Indonesia is not home free, our path is going to be rockier..

Here is the relevant quote from the Allahabad address (full text in link)

Zahak versus Husayni

X.T.M · March 1, 2026 · 32 comments

On March 1, 2026, Reza Pahlavi issued his statement on the killing of Ali Khamenei: “Ali Khamenei, the Zahhak of our time; the evil being who, just a few weeks ago, issued the order to slaughter tens of thousands of Iran’s finest children, is gone.“

The Shahnameh framing was not ornamental. For years, Pahlavi has used the Zahhak figure, the serpent-shouldered tyrant who fed on the brains of Iran’s youth, as his shorthand for the Islamic Republic.

And Khamenei, symmetrically, had organized his entire ideological project around the Husayni archetype: the martyr of Karbala, the one who refused submission before Yazid’s overwhelming power. Every day is Ashura. Every land is Karbala. That was the grammar of the revolution.

Now the “Zahhak” is dead (or the Husseiny attained martyrdom depending on your viewpoint). The question that follows is the only one that matters: who is Iran? Continue reading Zahak versus Husayni

Open Thread: Israel Strikes Iran

X.T.M · February 28, 2026 · 134 comments

Tehran has been bombed; University Street, home to a Military Intelligence base, has been struck.

Today is 9/11 in the Muslim calendar: the 11th of Ramadan, the 9th and holiest month.

US Marine guards at the American Consulate in Karachi opened fire on Shia protesters attempting to storm the compound, killing at least 12. Pakistani police and paramilitary Rangers were also present. The Sindh chief minister has ordered a probe into the deaths.

Shia communities in Kargil are mourning the death of their leader.

Imam Khamenei was not just a leader for Iran but seemingly for Muslims around the world. The Muslims of Kashmir took to the streets upon hearing news of Seyyed Khamenei’s martyrdom.

Open Thread – “Open War” breaks out between Pakistan and Afghanistan

RecoveringNewsJunkie · February 27, 2026 · 41 comments

This is a quote from Pakistan’s ‘defence minister’ from a couple of hours ago. There is a shooting war on the Durand line, and the PAF has bombed Kabul and Kandahar, including the airport, Taliban ministry buildings and other non-military targets.

This round of AfPak hostilities kicked off with a ‘surgical airstrike’ by Pakistan into Afghanistan that resulted in multiple civilian deaths. The Taliban retaliated by attacking Pakistani border outposts on the Durand Line, and claim to have captured more than a dozen of them, with Pakistani POWs and KIA. In response, the PAF has now bombed Kabul and Kandahar.

The Taliban, the erstwhile creation of the ISI, is now at war with Pakistan. Where does this go from here?

Operation “Righteous Fury”: Pakistani airstrikes on Afghanistan

Kabir · February 27, 2026 · 16 comments

Pakistan struck Afghanistan early Friday morning in response to Afghan attacks Thursday night on various locations in KPK.

According to Defense Minister Khawaja Asif, the Taliban have become “a proxy for India”. Asif said: “Our patience has run out. Now there is an open war”.

Those criticizing this operation should recognize that this is exactly the playbook India used in “Operation Sindoor”. War is obviously not a good outcome for anyone but national security trumps everything. There had been a Qatar and Turkey mediated ceasefire between Pakistan and Afghanistan but the Taliban have clearly not clamped down on TTP.

There seems to have been a “rally around the flag” effect with even the PTI making social media posts in support of Pakistan’s armed forces.

DAWN’s live blog is here

Kleptocratic Pakistan versus Oligarchic India

X.T.M · February 26, 2026 · 15 comments

A word was flagged in our comments last night. I think it deserves its own post.

Kabir called RNJ’s use “kleptocracy” offensive, when used to describe Pakistan. I understand the instinct. Words carry weight. But here’s my problem: in the High Signal era of Brown Pundits, we don’t retire words because they sting. We interrogate them.

So let’s interrogate this one.

I. What Does the Military Actually Own?

Not metaphorically. Literally. The Fauji Foundation operates across fertiliser, cement, food, banking, and energy. Revenues exceeding $1.5 billion annually. The Army Welfare Trust adds real estate, insurance, agriculture. Neither answers to civilian audit. Neither tables accounts in Parliament. DHA schemes, Defence Housing Authority, operate in every major Pakistani city. Land acquired below market rate. Sold at market rate. The differential isn’t commerce. It’s transfer. Ayesha Siddiqa documented this in Military Inc. back in 2007, estimating military business interests at $20 billion. That figure is now considered conservative. The military controls an estimated 12% of all state land. In a country where land is wealth, that number is not incidental.

II. But Is That Kleptocracy?

Continue reading Kleptocratic Pakistan versus Oligarchic India

Kabir Oral Traditions in the Indian Subcontinent

Kabir · February 26, 2026 · No comments

In the context of recent discussions on Indian and Pakistani music, I am cross posting this essay on Kabir Oral Traditions. It is important to remember that–despite the political tensions between India and Pakistan– there is a common culture that unites people. After all, culture does not end at the borders of nation-states. This essay was originally submitted as part of the coursework for my M.Mus degree in Ethnomusicology from SOAS University of London.

Bhagat Kabir (c. 1440-c. 1518) is considered one of the major poet-saints of the Bhakti movement—a social reform movement arising in North India around the fifteenth century. Characterized by an emphasis on the individual believer and a disregard for caste and gender taboos, the movement often rejected Vedic rituals and focused on the individual’s loving relationship with a personally defined god. This emphasis on love has clear parallels with Sufism, often seen as the mystical branch of Islam. It also later influenced Sikhism.

In contrast to other Bhakti poets such as Surdas and Meerabai—whose works can be placed squarely within the Hindu fold, often addressed to particular gods such as Krishna—Kabir’s poetry cannot be so neatly demarcated. He questioned the rituals of both Islam and Hinduism and was devoted to a nirgun (formless) deity, often addressed as “Ram”. According to Professor Harbans Mukhia: “In place of Allah and Ishwar he conceptualized a single universal God; in place of denominational religions he conceptualized a universal religiosity” (Mukhia 2018). This distance from the orthodoxy of both traditions perhaps explains why Kabir is revered by Hindus and Muslims across the Indian subcontinent. Some of his poetry is even included in the Guru Granth Sahib, Sikhism’s holiest scripture. In an era in which South Asia has experienced increasing polarization along sectarian lines, it is instructive to more closely examine this unique figure who served as a bridge between communities. Continue reading Kabir Oral Traditions in the Indian Subcontinent