What happened in Brussels was a co-production by adepts of two sick ideologies. The first one is Islamism in its many versions, including Khomeinism … - Amir Taheri

From 1860 to 1977, a string of Afghan monarchs imposed effective rule throughout their realm. But the monarchy was never absolute, if only because the loya jigrah, a high assembly of tribal and religious leaders, would restrain a despotic king or help a weak one.

It’s unfair to blame Pakistan for keeping the Taliban alive – it also gets support from the mullahs in Tehran and Islamists throughout the world – but there’s no doubt that Musharraf has done less than his share in fighting them.

Since the 1970s, thanks to a North Korean-style cult of personality, the [Syrian] presidency has been a kind of supranational institution, above anything as vulgar as the competition for power. But now it has lost its mystique: The president is a lonely man who dares not venture beyond his palace in the outskirts of a besieged capital. Syria’s history since independence in 1947 shows that whenever a ruler calls in the army to crush the street, he ends up the loser. It happened three times in 1949 alone, when the army staged three coups, each time after being ordered to crush the street.