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THE WEST vs IRAN: A PERSISTENT CIVILIZATIONAL RIVALRY

by Hammad Husain In the last 2,500 years, Persia (Iran) has been engaged in conflict with the West for nearly half that time, the most of any non-Western nation. At war with the Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Europeans, the US and Israel, Iran has been in a persistent civilizational rivalry with the West that has shaped geopolitics from antiquity to the present day....

THE WEST vs IRAN: A PERSISTENT CIVILIZATIONAL RIVALRY by Hammad HusainIn the last 2,500 years, Persia (Iran) has been engaged in conflict with the West for nearly half that time, the most of any non-Western nation. At war with the Greeks, Romans, Byza…

THE SHADOW WAR TO DISMANTLE A MUSLIM POWER

by Hammad Husain It began with a spark of genuine grievance. A segment of the population, with legitimate grievances, started protesting on social media. What started as digital dissent soon spilled onto the streets. It escalated with fiery speed. The protests shifted from sporadic rallies into organised, violent mobs ready for confrontation with the State. Slowly, the age-old playbook of foreign intelligence agencies became visible, where they don't create the fire, they simply find an existing flame and pour fuel on it to weaken the State from within....

THE SHADOW WAR TO DISMANTLE A MUSLIM POWER by Hammad Husain It began with a spark of genuine grievance. A segment of the population, with legitimate grievances, started protesting on social media. What started as digital dissent soon spille…

THE HUMILIATION OF ARROGANCE: Yarmouk, Gallipoli & Sindoor

By Hammad Husain

History is a graveyard of powers whose arrogance paved the road to their own ruin. Time and again, the world has watched as "invincible" reputations are shattered in a single day of combat, leaving once-dominant powers to concoct outlandish narratives to hide their strategic failures. From the Byzantine collapse at Yarmouk against the Muslim Caliphate to the British humiliation at Gallipoli against the Ottoman Turks, to India’s ill-fated Operation Sindoor against Pakistan, the pattern is unmistakable: Pride goes before the fall.

YARMOUK

In 636 CE, the mighty Byzantine Empire, the superpower of its time, faced the Rashidun Caliphate at Yarmouk. Confident in their glorious 600-year history, vast numbers and superior arms, the haughty Byzantines dismissed the Arab forces as local tribesmen. But their crushing defeat, a testament to superior Muslim generalship under Khalid Bin Waleed, shattered the Byzantine myth of invincibility. Emperor Heraclius’s subsequent attempts to frame it as divine punishment, rather than military inadequacy, fooled few beyond his immediate court. The world saw a changing tide and the decline of a world power.

GALLIPOLI

Centuries later, in 1915, the British Empire, then a global hegemon, launched the Gallipoli campaign against the Ottoman Empire. Winston Churchill, the British First Lord of Admiralty, brimming with imperial overconfidence, expected a swift victory. But the Ottoman Turks, led by the iron-willed Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, turned the Gallipoli hills red with British blood. Humiliated and defeated, the British retreated, desperately spinning a narrative of "heroic evacuation" to mask a strategic disaster. The world watched as the Gallipoli peninsula and the Straits of Dardanelles turned into the graveyard of British imperial arrogance.

SINDOOR

Fast forward to May 2025's Operation Sindoor. India, a nation with superpower aspirations, launched a massive air offensive against Pakistan, arrogantly expecting a walk in the park against a smaller force. The ensuing air battle saw India lose multiple fighter jets, including their newly acquired advanced Rafales, without any Pakistani losses. A retaliatory relentless barrage of Pakistani Fatah missiles hit 26 high-value targets inside India, rattling the Indian leadership and compelling a ceasefire. This defeat, under the generalship of Asim Munir, shattered India's delusions of grandeur and the myth of Indian regional hegemony.

To save face, the Indian military commanders embarked on a campaign of contradictory and outlandish claims in a desperate bid to fabricate victory from a confirmed strategic rout.

SUBDUING THE HEGEMONS

The legacy of Khalid bin Waleed, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, and Asim Munir confirms a timeless truth: when courage, strong faith and superior strategy of a smaller force meet the arrogant aggression of a hegemon, that hegemon falls.

Just like the eternal story of David and Goliath.

Across these three distinct battles, the pattern remains consistent: an arrogant power, blinded by its own perceived might, suffers a massive blow to its prestige and military credibility at the hands of a smaller nation. While their leaders desperately attempt to rewrite history through shifting narratives, the smaller, defiant adversary emerges with newfound respect and an elevated international standing.

The skies and mountains of Occupied Kashmir now join the ranks of Yarmouk and Gallipoli, bearing witness to a truth as old as time: When arrogance takes flight, only humiliation remains.

A. P. SINGH: SINGLE-HANDEDLY...

Military History is full of generals who single-handedly won battles and elevated their nations to glory.

But there is one general, who etched his name in history by achieving precisely the opposite. Single-handedly.

Enter Air Chief Marshal A. P. Singh, the chief of the 4th largest air force in the world: the Indian Air Force.

On the night of 6-7 May 2025, his government entrusted his force to implement their belligerent policy of aggression against neighbouring Pakistan. In response, A. P. Singh launched 85 fighter planes to attack targets inside Pakistan.

Pakistan Air Force scrambled 42 of its fighters to defend its nation's sovereignty and to counter the unlawful aggression of A. P. Singh's fighter planes.

In the ensuing battle, the largest air battle since 1982, A. P. Singh lost 7 of his fighter planes, Including 4 Rafales that his country had recently acquired with much fanfare.

Pakistan lost none.

In that gruelling one hour combat, A. P. Singh's inventory of 36 new and expensive Rafales got reduced by 11%; his country lost one billion dollars worth of advanced equipment and allegedly 3 pilots.

But in that one fateful, tense sixty minutes in the dark skies, it wasn't just the seven fighter planes that came crashing down: Along with them, India's prestige, international standing, aspirations to become a superpower, desire to join G7, posturing as a bulwark against China, and decades of efforts to build a "powerful country" image crashed into the rugged mountains of Occupied Kashmir and the plains of East Punjab.

All because of one man: Air Chief Marshal A. P. Singh. Single-handedly!

Days later, his superior, the Indian Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), revealed in an interview that the entire Indian Air Force was grounded for 2 crucial days (in a 4-day conflict) to "change" their strategy.

The CDS conceded that "We suffered some losses". This admission was echoed by the Indian Armed Forces spokesman, a naval attaché, and a senior opposition leader. None claimed a single Pakistani plane had been shot down.

Three months passed by.

Then, in August 2025, A. P. Singh stood before the media and declared his force had downed six Pakistani fighters during the conflict.

Two months later, at a seminar, he casually escalated the claim, announcing the destruction of "12 to 13 Pakistani planes, including an AWACS."

When the chief of the 4th largest Air Force in the world issues a statement, the world listens. Media outlets carry the news. But with his outrageous and shifting claims, A. P. Singh did not command respect; he invited ridicule. World leaders, international media, and even sane voices within India met his statements with derision.

Undeterred, he recently issued a threat to Pakistan with a straight face: "We will destroy you in hours."

One must give credit to this man for the level he has achieved in being incredibly thick-skinned, remarkably unabashed and utterly shameless.

Even Bollywood's jingoistic actors like Sunny Deol command a little more respect. They are, after all, professional actors performing bravado for fiction.

With his comical statements since May 2025, A. P. Singh has become an international joke. How can an Air Force Chief, after having lost seven of his latest aircraft in air-to-air combat, and having grounded his entire air force for two days in the middle of a war to "change strategy" still have the audacity to keep issuing chest thumping statements? It requires an almost superhuman lack of shame.

With it's increased international prestige, Pakistan has moved on. The world has moved on, while Singh and his comrades are still stuck in the time-loop of their May 2025 humiliation. The Indian Government should give him a Vir Chakra as a lollipop, just like they gave one to Abhinandan, and send him home. Or maybe retire him with a Lok Sabha ticket.

At the very least, it might spare the uniform further disgrace.

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CHIRAGH-E-AAKHIR-E-SHAB: The Flickering Flame of the Am€rican Night

by Hammad Husain

There is a profound metaphor in Urdu poetry:

چراغ بجھنے سے پہلے بھڑک اٹھتا ھے
(chiragh bujhne se pehle bharrak uthta hai): the idea that a flame flares up with sudden, desperate intensity just before it dies out.

Renowned Urdu poet Mirza Ghalib immortalized this fleeting brilliance in his verse:

گرمیِ محفل ہے ایک رقصِ شرر ہونے تک
(Garmi-e-mehfil hai ik raqs-e-sharar honay tak)

The liveliness of a gathering lasts only till the candle's flame starts flickering: that final, bright flicker is not a sign of life, but a signal that the party is over and the light is about to extinguish.

The medical profession has a term for this: Terminal Lucidity. It refers to that unexpected return to near-normal functioning that sometimes occurs in patients shortly before death. It is that last surge of energy before the system finally collapses.

The American rise began in the early twentieth century, transforming into a global superpower after the Second World War. By 1991, it stood alone as the undisputed hegemon. However, the twenty-first century began with 9/11, a moment that triggered the slow unravelling of a century of unchallenged power. Over the next twenty-five years, the cracks deepened: a stagnating economy, a national debt reaching a staggering $38 trillion and weakened international clout.

The Trump era feels like the "pre-dawn" moment of a superpower whose flame is about to go out. It is the end of a long night that lasted a hundred years. One can almost imagine Trump in a room full of generals, echoing British poet Dylan Thomas’s defiant command: "Rage, rage against the dying of the light."

This is what we are witnessing. The attack on Venezuela, the kidnapping of a head of state, the provocative $11 billion arms sale to Taiwan, and the overt threats to Iran are the "rage" of a superpower refusing to accept its imminent twilight. The aggressive deployment of aircraft carrier groups across the Caribbean, the Persian Gulf, and the South China Sea is the cold-war muscle memory of an entity whose cognitive capabilities have been compromised. On the surface, these actions may be perceived as a return to the peak American power of the 1990s, but they are simply the flame flickering bright one last time.

There is a bitter geopolitical-poetic irony here that Ghalib could not have foreseen: The American attack on Venezuela to take control of its oil reserves was the metaphoric flickering flame desperately trying to find one last drop of oil to sustain itself.

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TWO PERSONS, ONE GRAVE: When Power Struggles Become Existential

by Hammad Husain

The world history is full of stories of ambition, rivalry, and the relentless pursuit of power. Yet, some struggles transcend the political contest and become existential battles defined by the ominous adage, "two persons, one grave." This phrase, popularized during the fierce rivalry between General Zia-ul-Haq and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in the 70s, describes a dynamic where two individuals vie for ultimate authority with such intensity that the political survival of one necessitates the absolute downfall or elimination of the other. These are not conflicts of policy but of destiny, where compromise is unthinkable and shared space impossible. For one to remain standing, the other must be vanquished!

In such fierce rivalries, while one goes on to wear the crown, the other ends up in jail, exile, obscurity or grave.

The following is a list of historical and contemporary rivalries where this zero-sum game played out with serious consequences.

1. *Caesar vs. Pompey: The Roman Republic's Final Duel*
(Rome, 40s BCE)

The struggle between Julius Caesar and Pompey the Great epitomized the death throes of the Roman Republic. Once powerful allies, their ambitions ultimately clashed over control of Rome. Caesar's act of crossing the Rubicon launched a civil war that culminated in Pompey's defeat and subsequent death. The conflict left Caesar as the sole master of the Roman world, forever ending the Republican system they had both vowed to serve.

2. *Beyazid II vs. Cem Sultan: The Ottoman Succession Feud*
(Ottoman Empire, 1480s CE)

The sons of the great Ottoman Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror, Beyazid II and Cem Sultan, engaged in a bitter struggle for the throne. Cem was defeated by Beyazid and forced into exile. To ensure Cem could never mount a challenge, Beyazid's agents successfully kept him powerless and a captive in European capitals until his death, securing his own unchallenged reign and preserving the stability of the Ottoman Empire.

3. *Aurangzeb vs. Dara Shikoh: The Mughal War of Succession*
(Mughal Empire, 1650s CE)

The battle for the Peacock Throne between the Mughal princes Aurangzeb and Dara Shikoh (sons of Emperor Shah Jahan) was a brutal contest of ideologies. Dara, the favoured eldest son, and Aurangzeb, the orthodox general, fought a defining war of succession. Aurangzeb outmaneuvered and defeated Dara, executing him publicly. This act secured Aurangzeb's absolute rule and profoundly changed the religious and political direction of the Mughal Empire.

4. *Stalin vs. Trotsky: The Battle for the Soul of the Bolshevik Revolution*
(Soviet Union, 1922 - 1940)

After Lenin, Joseph Stalin and Leon Trotsky engaged in a ruthless struggle for control of the Soviet Union. Trotsky, the ideological purist, was isolated and exiled by Stalin, who used the party machinery to consolidate dictatorial power. Stalin pursued Trotsky across continents, ultimately orchestrating his assassination, eliminating the last prominent rival who offered an alternative vision for the revolution.

5. *Gen Zia vs. Z.A. Bhutto: Pakistan's Defining Showdown*
(Pakistan, 1977 - 1979)

After Gen Zia seized power in a coup, he pursued an unrelenting legal and political battle against Bhutto. Despite Bhutto's immense public popularity, Zia orchestrated his controversial trial and ex*****on, removing his only credible political challenger and securing his own eleven-year military rule.

6. *Putin vs. Alexei Navalny: The Silencing of Dissent*
(Russia, 2011 - 2024)

The dynamic between President Vladimir Putin and opposition leader Alexei Navalny played out as an existential struggle. Navalny, the most persistent anti-corruption voice, was repeatedly imprisoned on charges widely viewed as politically motivated. His death in a remote prison in 2024 effectively removed the single most formidable voice of domestic opposition, confirming the absolute nature of the power held by Putin.

7. *Muhammad Bin Salman vs. Muhammad Bin Nayef: The Saudi Succession Purge*
(Saudi Arabia, 2017 - 2020)

The rapid ascent of Mohammad bin Salman (MBS) in Saudi Arabia required the absolute neutralization of his rival, Crown Prince Muhammad bin Nayef (MBN). In a dramatic internal coup in 2017, MBS removed MBN from his powerful post as Crown Prince and Interior Minister and placed him under detention. He is still under arrest and completely incommunicado. This swift action eliminated the chief competitor and cleared MBS's path to becoming the kingdom’s undisputed ruler.

8. *Gen Asim Munir vs. Lt Gen Faiz Hameed: The Final Purge*
(Pakistan, 2019 - 2025)

When General Asim Munir was selected as the Chief of Army Staff (COAS), his main rival, Lt Gen Faiz Hameed, was forced into early retirement. However, the rivalry did not cease; Faiz continued to intrigue in the shadows, working with the PTI to topple Asim Munir. This struggle reached its crisis point with the events of 9th May 2023: the failed "mutiny" against the army was allegedly orchestrated by Lt Gen Faiz Hameed as a direct attempt to remove Gen Asim Munir and replace him as COAS. The final, decisive blow came a year later: Lt Gen Faiz was arrested and court martialled, resulting in a military court sentencing him to 14 years of rigorous imprisonment for interfering in politics and violating the Official Secrets Act, which ended his influence entirely and secured Gen (by now Field Marshal) Asim Munir's absolute authority.

9. *Nawaz Sharif vs. Imran Khan: Pakistan's Enduring Political Rivalry*
(Pakistan, 2008 - ongoing)

The current polarized political landscape of Pakistan is defined by the intense, zero-sum struggle between former prime ministers Nawaz Sharif and Imran Khan. The political ascendancy of one has historically coincided with the political suppression or imprisonment of the other. Characterized by mass rallies and judicial battles, their rivalry is a continuous clash where the political survival of one leader depends on the total eclipse of the other. The battle is still on, and as history shows, only one will be left standing.

CONCLUSION

The "two persons, one grave" phenomenon highlights a brutal truth about ultimate power: in certain contexts, its pursuit leaves no room for co-existence. From ancient empires to modern states, whether through civil war, ex*****on, or strategic judicial and institutional elimination, the pattern remains consistent. These aren't just disagreements but existential contests where the triumph of one necessitates the complete eclipse, if not outright destruction, of the other, forever reshaping nations and cementing the winner’s solitary place in history.

FACT: Mian Nawaz Sharif has been a national power broker for 35 years, plus another 5 years as chief minister. That is more than 50% of Pakistan's history!

His 35 year national-level political career has overlapped with 9 army chiefs, 6 of whom were appointed by him.