Afghan Commentary Post

    Why I Don't Want to Live in My Native Afghanistan Because My Mind Is Not My Own — It Belongs to the Tribe   Wahab Raofi My uncle, a retired doctor, once told me about a patient who came to him complaining of a rash on his back. A closer examination revealed the cause: a colony of lice had taken hold in the skin, feeding quietly, invisibly, for who knows how long. The image never left me. Not because it was grotesque — though it was — but because it raised a question I couldn't shake: can something just as parasitic, just as hidden, colonize the human mind? I believe it can. I call them the lice of the mind. These are the thoughts, beliefs, and identities implanted in us before we are old enough to examine them — by our parents, our communities, our religions. Like lice, they are introduced early, burrow deep, and become so entrenched that by the time we notice them, removal is painful and often resisted. Unlike lice, we rarely even recognize them as forei...

  Beyond the Strait: A Hybrid Response to Energy Vulnerability Iran has closed the Strait of Hormuz—but it cannot close our determination to open new channels. Channels that flow not through chokepoints controlled by hostile states, but through innovation, policy, and personal responsibility. The threat of conflict in the Persian Gulf delivers a warning that goes beyond geopolitics: as long as we depend on oil that must pass through twenty-one miles of navigable water, we remain a civilization held hostage by geography. If the current crisis teaches us anything, it is this: the world’s energy supply is terrifyingly fragile. A cheap, makeshift drone can disrupt global markets. For decades, we have assumed that the United States—and the broader global economy—could safely absorb the risk of a hostile state controlling the flow of oil through its neighborhood. America’s historic response has been to deploy naval power to "sort things out" and then return to business as usual. ...

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  The End of the Nuclear Illusion: Why Iran's Atomic Ambition Is Losing Its Strategic Value For decades, the pursuit of nuclear weapons was seen as the ultimate guarantor of national security. Iran's leadership invested vast portions of the nation's wealth in that logic, calculating that a nuclear capability would allow them to deter adversaries, intimidate neighbors, and project power across the Middle East. The program became the center of gravity for Iranian foreign policy — and the primary lens through which the world viewed Tehran. Yet a hypothetical scenario worth taking seriously — a coordinated US-Israeli strike on Iran's nuclear facilities, missile infrastructure, and command networks — exposes a more complicated reality. Even after catastrophic damage to its military apparatus, a resilient Iran would likely continue fighting through dispersed drone attacks, cyber operations, and regional proxy networks. The nuclear program, for all its cost and sacrifice, ...

      What the Russia-Iran Alliance Teaches the Arab Gulf Do not rely on the United States for your security. Shifting priorities and uncertain commitments mean that national survival is no longer guaranteed by foreign guarantees. The lesson for Arab states is urgent: sovereignty is secured at home, not in Washington.   Last year, Vladimir Putin and Masoud Pezeshkian signed the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Treaty, committing their countries to oppose interference by third parties in each other's affairs. The ceremony was warm. The language was sweeping. Moscow and Tehran celebrated the culmination of years of deepening alignment. Then the United States struck Iran. When Washington launched its attack—killing Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and dismantling Iran's air defenses—Russia stood idly by. Putin called the killing a "cynical violation." The foreign ministry called for "de-escalation." Neither statement named the United States. Nei...

  The sky over Kabul is a dirty bandage, partly clouded. Fog rolls through the streets, swift and low, mirroring the city’s frantic political pulse. Snow still clings to the Hindu Kush peaks like old scars, but down here, in the gutters, it has melted into slush—a gray soup of last week's snow and last night's rain. But no one looks down. Everyone looks up, or ahead, or at each other, eyes wide with disbelief. The sound is the first thing that hits you. It is not the Kabul they have known. No, this is a symphony of chaos: the victorious, percussive  honk  of motorists gridlocked on Jalalabad Road. Music—raw, defiant, bleeding from rolled-down car windows—clashes with the ancient call from the minarets. And beneath it all, a roar. A human roar. Crowds spill from side streets like a dam has broken. Young men chant until their voices crack:  "Long live freedom! Long live justice!"  Their fists pump the wet air. Women, some still in burqas, others with their...