On the eve of the major conference on Thursday in London that will bring
together senior officials from all of the governments taking part in the
International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan as well as Afghanistan's
neighbors, donors and the United Nations, Iran was still debating whether or
not to attend.
However, even if the Iranians do not show up, they will for the immediate
future continue to push internationally for a regional approach to stabilizing
Afghanistan. This was one of the conditions Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki
set for Iran to attend the meeting.
"The occupying forces are now facing great problems as they
have no comprehensive knowledge and information about Afghanistan and we are
quite confident that they will leave the country regretfully," said Mohammad
Reza Rahimi, Iran's first vice president, ahead of a pre-London warmer in
Istanbul this week that brought together the heads of states of Turkey,
Pakistan and Afghanistan, as well as representatives from China, Tajkistan,
Turkmenistan and some international observers.
"Although Iran appreciates Turkey's constructive mediation between Kabul and
Islamabad, we have some misgivings about Ankara's excessive involvement in
reaching out to the extremists, who may be the net beneficiaries of all these
conferences that pay so much attention to making a deal with them," said a
Tehran University political science professor.
He added that the lack of any border between Turkey and Afghanistan and the
absence of any strong historical links between the two countries set "definite
limits" on the scope of Turkey's involvement in Afghan affairs. This was
irrespective of Turkey's "token presence" as part of the multinational force;
Turkey has close to 2,000 forces there and may send another 1,000 in the near
future.
Ahead of the London summit, everyone seems to be on board with the idea of a
"political solution to the conflict", to paraphrase the top US commander in
Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, in his recent interview with the
Financial Times of London. Even Afghan President Hamid Karzai is reported to
have come up with his own "reconciliation plan" that calls for the integration
of aspects of the Taliban, provided that they lay down their arms, which
appears somewhat wishful thinking.
The news from Pakistan, which uses the lever of the Taliban for its own "games
of strategy" vis-a-vis New Delhi, is that the government has been in
communication with the Taliban "at all levels".
Certainly, that is welcome news to the Taliban's main backers in Saudi Arabia,
one of the few governments in the world that recognized the Taliban regime
before its demise in 2001, and Tehran's main concern is that the London
conference would be billed as a victory for the Saudi diplomacy that counts on
close connections between Islamabad and Riyadh.
But then again, it is far from given that in this new hectic season of
conference diplomacy on Afghanistan much change in the realities on the ground
will emerge, including the much talked about transfer of authority in some
areas to Afghan forces. If the latter were prepared and capable of assuming
such control, Kabul would have by now managed to convince the occupying forces
to leave. With the Afghan parliamentary elections now postponed to September
over "security concerns", any hasty decision to reduce the presence of the
multinational forces in favor of Afghan forces would most likely backfire and
aggravate those security concerns.
Iran's conundrum, on the other hand, is that it seeks a greater and more
prominent role at the table in London precisely at a time when Iran-Britain
relations have hit a new low and there are strong moves in the Iranian
parliament (Majlis) to substantially downgrade Tehran's diplomatic ties with
London over the perceived anti-Iran positions of the British government.
However, the fact that both Rahimi and British Foreign Secretary David Miliband
were present at the Istanbul meeting may have broken some ice, depending on any
discussions on the sidelines of that conference. Indeed, if the Turks are
adamant about their mediation role, it would be fitting for them to mediate
between Tehran and London, given their cordial relations with both sides.
"Iran's number one priority for Afghanistan right now is capacity building for
the Kabul regime, on economic, political and, above all, security fronts," said
another Tehran foreign policy expert at the think-tank, Center For Strategic
Research. When asked what the number two priority is, he responded that it was
a timetable for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's departure.
That may be, but the more immediate, and pressing, priority of Iran is to make
its weight felt at the international forums on Afghanistan that are due to take
place in 2010, including the Moscow meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation
Organization (SCO) in April. This is in light of Iran's observer status at the
SCO, which comprises China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and
Uzbekistan.
In addition, Tehran is planning its own regional meeting on Afghanistan in late
spring, hoping that it will have a better outcome than the trilateral
conference in Pakistan two weeks ago that was by all accounts a failure. This
was not least because Afghan Foreign Minister Rangin Dadfar Spanta had just
learned that parliament had voted to replace him.
Since then, the Tehran media have been critical of Iran's Foreign Ministry for
delivering a mini-victory to Pakistan, which does not quite see eye-to-eye with
Iran or Afghanistan, given the serious frictions between Kabul and Islamabad
over the former's suspicion of the latter's collusion with the Taliban.
There is also the delicate linkage between the Afghan quagmire and the Iran
nuclear standoff and Tehran's ability to raise the costs there for the US,
Germany, France and United Kingdom, ie, the key Western governments involved in
the nuclear negotiations with Iran that are plotting more sanctions against
Iran both unilaterally and multilaterally. Tehran is already very unhappy with
Germany's cancellation of a huge gas deal after a recent meeting between
Chancellor Angela Merkel and visiting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu.
No one should underestimate Iran's potential to cause a great deal of mischief
in Afghanistan, where a number of warlords who resided in Iran for years during
the Soviet occupation in the 1980s and the Taliban era in the late 1990s have
strong ties with Tehran.
For now, however, Iran appears to be on the same page in the search for a
"common approach", although sources tell this author that Iran considers the
recent announcement by the UN pointman on Afghanistan regarding the UN's
preparedness to remove the name of some Taliban leaders from its black list to
be "premature".
This is in sharp contrast to Pakistan, which is seeking legitimacy for Taliban
leader Mullah Omar, who is believed to be spending time in Pakistan. Tehran's
concern is that any concessions granted to the Taliban at the conferences will
enhance their legitimacy at the expense of Karzai's government, irrespective of
Karzai's frantic conference diplomacy aimed at sparking a new level of
international financial commitment to his country.
"Afghanistan's problem demands a regional solution. We do not accept
unilateralism and we should not re-try the failed policies toward Afghanistan.
The unilateral and military approach is not the solution," Mottaki stated at
the trilateral meeting in Istanbul. He reiterated Tehran's stance that US
President Barack Obama's military surge policy would only "exacerbate" the
problem by intensifying anti-occupation sentiment in Afghanistan.
But the idea of a "common approach" as long as there are great divides between
countries in terms of varying national interests, geopolitical considerations
and security competitions appears vacuous, especially as Tehran is convinced
that no matter how many times Afghan and Pakistan leaders meet to shake hands
before the glare of the world media, the underlying causes of a growing
security rift between the two countries remain.
As a result, in the coming months, if Tehran feels its pessimism is justified,
it may back down from its "regional approach" and seek cooperation with
Pakistan's chief nemesis, India, on Afghanistan. Indeed, all the signs indicate
that when it comes to Afghanistan, another trilateral grouping consisting of
Iran, India (another observer country at SCO) and Afghanistan may make more
sense, at least as far as Iran's national security interests are concerned. The
nub of Afghanistan's problem is, after all, its growing emergence at the nodal
point of a grand competition between NATO and the SCO.
Kaveh L Afrasiabi, PhD, is the author of After Khomeini: New
Directions in Iran's Foreign Policy (Westview Press) . For his Wikipedia entry,
click here. His
latest book,
Reading In Iran Foreign Policy After September 11 (BookSurge Publishing
, October 23, 2008) is now available.
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