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America’s Middle East edifice is cracking, not under some existential Iranian onslaught, but through the hubris of its own architects. Picture the scene: the United States, once the unassailable sheriff of the region, now edging towards a retreat that mirrors the humiliating scramble from Kabul’s airport in 2021—dusty chaos, abandoned allies, and a superpower’s aura in tatters. This isn’t the plot of a Tom Clancy thriller; it’s the slow-motion unravelling of Washington’s security architecture, driven not by 16 US intelligence reports debunking Iranian threats (as a counterterrorism insider named Joe Kant has pointed out), but by the personal zeal of…

By S.M. Inam Pakistan’s economy hangs by a thread in the Strait of Hormuz. That narrow waterway, a mere 21 miles wide at its narrowest, funnels nearly one-fifth of the world’s oil—around 20 million barrels a day—towards markets like ours in the energy-hungry Global South. Disrupt it, even briefly, and the ripples turn into tsunamis. A new study from the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE), tied to the Planning Commission, lays this bare with unflinching clarity. Titled “Pakistan’s Exposure to a Strait of Hormuz Shock,” it paints a scenario where a geopolitical flare-up or logistical snag in that chokepoint…

By Muhammad Mohsin Iqbal There are moments in the life of nations when questions, long suppressed beneath the weight of power and narrative, rise with an urgency that cannot be ignored. Today, one such question confronts the conscience of the international order: is it the exclusive right of the United States of America to live in security, sovereignty and independence, while the same aspirations in other nations are treated with suspicion, hostility or even force? The United States has, over decades, constructed for itself one of the most formidable arsenals known to humankind. It justifies this accumulation as a necessary…

By Atiq Raja Success wears many masks. For the banker in the glass tower, it’s the seven-figure bonus that buys a yacht he rarely sails. For the influencer, it’s the viral post that swells the follower count but hollows the soul. Power, comfort, recognition—these glitter like fool’s gold, promising everything until you hold them close and feel the chill. History, though, tells a truer tale: the deepest, most enduring triumphs aren’t snatched from the peak of ambition’s ladder. They bloom from purpose, that quiet north star whispering why you’re climbing at all. Picture two climbers scaling Everest. One races for…

By Faizan Khan LAHORE: The Private Schools Association has urged authorities to reconsider the decision to extend school holidays until March 31, citing concerns over academic disruption. The association said that around 80 percent of students in the country travel to school without using transport, which makes extended closures more difficult for families. Association leader Abrar Ahmed Khan suggested that students who rely on transport could be shifted to online classes during this period to minimise disruption.He added that students in Punjab have already received less than 124 days of academic instruction in the current session, raising concerns about learning…

By our correspondent KARACHI: A fire that broke out once again at Gul Plaza in Karachi has been brought under control after firefighters launched a prompt operation, officials said.According to the Chief Fire Officer, the blaze started in the basement near Gate No. 2. Five fire tenders took part in the firefighting operation, which succeeded in containing the flames.Fire brigade officials said that the cooling process was still underway to prevent the fire from reigniting. They added that the same location had caught fire a day earlier, when a basement shop was affected.Earlier, the Chief Fire Officer said that thick…

There is a particular kind of dread that settles over strategic planners when the certainties of the post-Cold War era finally evaporate. For the best part of three decades, European security rested on a series of assumptions: that the United States would remain the indispensable guarantor of continental stability; that Russia’s revanchist ambitions could be managed through sanctions and dialogue; that the arc of history bent, however imperfectly, toward liberal internationalism. Those assumptions now lie in tatters. A comprehensive strategic assessment of the security environment facing Ukraine over 2026 and 2027 paints a picture of unrelenting darkness, a world in…

By Muhammad Mohsin Iqbal Eid arrives each year like a gentle breeze after a long season of trial, carrying with it the fragrance of forgiveness, reunion, and gratitude. It is a day when hearts soften, when differences are forgotten, and when families gather beneath one roof to offer thanks for the strength to endure and the blessings to rejoice. In every town and village, in every street adorned with lights and laughter, the spirit of the festival transforms ordinary hours into moments of profound happiness. For those who live abroad, or who reside in distant cities in pursuit of livelihood,…

By Atiq Raja There is a quiet tragedy in the way so many lives unfold. Not the tragedy of sudden loss or dramatic failure, but something more subtle and far more common: the tragedy of the unexamined path. People wake, they work, they rest, they repeat. They follow the contours of expectation—family, society, the relentless momentum of the everyday—and move from one phase to the next without ever pausing to ask a question that, once posed, has the power to change everything: is this the life I truly want? It is a question that sounds simple but lands like a…