The participation of the
presidents of Pakistan and Afghanistan in the
international conference on terrorism held in
Tehran over the weekend becomes a major diplomatic
and political victory for Iran at the present
juncture of regional politics. Both Asif Ali
Zardari and Hamid Karzai were received by Iran's
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei.
One main focus of the conference was to
highlight that the United States has been using
international terrorism as the pretext to
intervene in Afghanistan and in the Middle East
and to interfere in their internal affairs.
Khamenei's message to the conference, in a
nutshell, highlighted the "calculations of satanic
world powers, which use terrorism in their
policies and planning to achieve their
illegitimate goals".
Khamenei alleged that
the US finances and arms terrorist groups
in the region and, most
interestingly, he singled out for reference the
"crimes" by the Blackwater (Xe Services) group of
"assisting terrorist groups" in Pakistan as "part
of this shameful and unforgettable list of
American acts of terrorism".
Expressing
solidarity with the growing criticism by Islamabad
and Kabul against the excesses of the US's
military operations in AfPak, Khamenei added, "The
deadly attacks by the American drones against
defenseless families in villages [of Pakistan] and
in the most deprived areas of Afghanistan have
repeatedly turned weddings into mourning
ceremonies." Khamenei said in a scathing attack on
the US's regional policies:
With such behavior, it is a shame
[for the US] to claim to be leading the fight
against terrorism ... From the standpoint of the
leaders of the hegemonic powers [read US],
everything that threatens their illegitimate
interests is viewed as terrorism. All struggles
intended to defend a cause against the occupiers
and interventionist forces are regarded by them
as terrorism.
Zardari highlighted at
the conference that Pakistan had suffered
immensely during the decade of the US-led war in
Afghanistan. He said over 5,000 Pakistani security
personnel had lost their lives and the estimated
damage in financial terms amounts to US$37 billion
for the Pakistani economy. Zardari stressed the
importance of the "vital need for a collective
campaign" by the regional states in the "war on
terror".
Overlapping security interests
Karzai, on the other hand, said, "I
believe that the campaign against terrorism is not
possible through merely military means." He called
for unity, a firm stand and "collective
cooperation" by Muslim states in the fight against
terrorism.
On the eve of the conference,
Zardari and Karzai held a tripartite meeting with
Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad, which,
again, "urged close cooperation among regional
countries" over the issues of "peace and security
in the Middle East". The Iranian president's
office said, "[Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan]
pledged to expand their cooperation in political,
security, economic and cultural areas as well as
fighting terrorism and foreign interventions."
From the Iranian perspective, a main
objective was to forge common thinking with
Pakistan and Afghanistan that the continuance of
the US and North Atlantic Treaty Organization
forces in Afghanistan adversely impacts on all
three countries' national interests and on
regional security and stability. This comes out
clearly in the meetings Khamenei had with Zardari
and Karzai.
Khamenei sought an "all-out
expansion of ties" between Iran and Pakistan and
cautioned Zardari that "Washington is trying to
sow seeds of dissension in Pakistan to meet its
illegitimate goals". He expressed his appreciation
that the Pakistani people were well aware of the
US's "ominous intention" and are resisting the
US's "hegemonic plots".
Khamenei's
reference went beyond the earlier allegation by
Ahmadinejad that Tehran had "specific evidence" of
a US conspiracy to seize Pakistan's nuclear
weapons. Khamenei seemed to imply that the US
plans to destabilize the Pakistan' state in order
to weaken it and to break its resolve to resist US
dominance, as well as to hamper its capacity to
play an effective role in the region.
Clearly, the tensions that have accrued in
the US-Pakistan relationship in the recent period
provide the backdrop for this exchange. This is
the first time that such a reference has been made
at Khamenei's level. Zardari's delegation included
Interior Minister Rehman Malik, which suggests the
Pakistani expectation of Iran sharing details of
its perception regarding the security implications
of the US's regional policies.
Malik
indeed had a separate meeting with Iran's Interior
Minister Mostafa Mohammad-Najjar, who was
previously Iran's defense minister and belongs to
the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. The
Iranian account of the meeting suggested that it
was mainly concerned with the activities of the
terrorist group Jundallah, which operates out of
Pakistan in Iran's eastern border province of
Sistan-Balochistan.
"We discussed ways to
collaborate on the fight against extremists and
terrorists who use Pakistani soil for actions
against Iran's interests," Mohammad-Najjar said.
Significantly, Tehran is making a distinction
between Jundallah and the Pakistani state, whereas
there have been earlier allegations of Pakistani
complicity. Whether Malik (who was a former head
of Pakistan's Federal Investigation Agency) also
met with Iran's powerful Intelligence Minister
Heydar Moslehi remains unclear.
At his
meeting with Karzai, Khamenei frontally attacked
the US plans to set up military bases in
Afghanistan. "The Americans are after permanent
bases in Afghanistan, which is a dangerous issue
because as long as US troops are in Afghanistan,
there would be no real security. The Afghan people
are suffering from the US military presence in
their country and this presence is a great pain
for them and the entire region", he said.
The meeting with Karzai took place two
days after US President Barack Obama's
announcement of a troop drawdown in Afghanistan.
Khamenei told Karzai that a rapid pullout of US
troops was in the interests of Afghanistan and the
region. He was confident that Afghanistan was
capable of "controlling its affairs and
determining its fate".
Having said that,
all indications are that in the Iranian
assessment, the US may be compelled to abandon its
earlier plans to set up military bases in
Afghanistan due to a combination of circumstances
- the Taliban's uncompromising opposition, the
US's economic crisis and overall war weariness and
the urgency to concentrate on the Middle East and
Africa.
Meanwhile, Tehran keeps urging
Karzai not to give in to the US plans. What
worries Iran most is that the planned US military
bases include Herat and Shindad in western
Afghanistan on the border with Iran.
Broad convergence The big
question is how tangible will be an
Iran-Pakistan-Afghanistan regional axis over the
Afghan problem. The short answer is that the axis
is both a matter of appearance as well as of some
substance and how the proportion works out will
depend on the acuteness of the situation in
Afghanistan and the regional milieu.
At
this point in time, the varying degrees of
antipathy felt toward the US on the part of
Pakistan and Afghanistan on the one hand and
Iran's inveterate standoff with the US on the
other give impetus to the three neighboring
countries drawing closer.
Both Zardari and
Karzai undertook the visit to Tehran with the full
awareness that it signified an act of "strategic
defiance" of the US - and more important, they
knew that Washington would get the message as
well. That is to say, the "Iran connection" gets
them some room to maneuver vis-a-vis the US.
But then, there are also specific
interests for Kabul and Islamabad to forge an
understanding with Iran. Karzai would like to
secure all the political support that Iran can
provide that enables him to press ahead with the
reconciliation with the Taliban.
Gulbuddin
Hekmatyar, leader of Hezb-i-Islami, which is
represented in Karzai's government, lived in exile
in Iran for five years. Iran also wields influence
over a variety of non-Pashtun forces that happen
to harbor misgivings about Karzai's peace plans of
reconciling the Taliban.
In a worst-case
scenario, Iran could prove to be a "spoiler",
while Karzai's negotiating strength substantially
increases via-a-vis the US (and Pakistan) in
political terms if Iran is seen as his partner.
Iran's support for the peace process as
next-door neighbor is an imperative need for
Karzai to reach a durable Afghan settlement. The
bottom line is that reciprocally Tehran would
expect Karzai to keep in mind at all times the red
line regarding Iran's legitimate interests in
Afghanistan and acts accordingly.
Karzai
has managed to maintain good equations with Tehran
all through despite US interference. From this
angle, Khamenei's strong demarche with Karzai
regarding US military bases in Afghanistan could
prove to be a clincher.
In the past,
Iran's and Pakistan's interests in Afghanistan
often proved to be at loggerheads. But a
qualitative change has taken place. For Pakistan,
gnawed by apprehensions of the US's intentions
toward it, Iran as a friendly neighbor becomes a
critically important asset today.
Especially so, as Iranian inputs regarding
the US's covert activities inside Pakistan will be
of invaluable use and solidarity with Iran helps
mitigate the US pressure. For Tehran, too, it is
important that Pakistan does its utmost to ensure
that Jundallah activities from its soil are
curtailed and the possibility of third countries
exploiting Jundallah as a means to destabilize
Iran is excluded.
Equally, Pakistan is a
major Sunni country and Iran's interest lies in
ensuring that it does not become part of the
Saudi-led alliance against Iran in the Middle
East. Iran can flaunt its friendship with Pakistan
to expose the Saudi campaign to whip up the phobia
of a Shi'ite-Sunni schism in the Middle East today
by way of branding Tehran as the leader of the
Shi'ite camp and rallying the Sunni Arab opinion.
The Taliban used to be a divisive issue in
the Iran-Pakistan relationship. But this is no
longer the case, as the cutting edge of the Afghan
situation today for both countries lies in regard
to the US's military presence. Both Iran and
Pakistan agree that a long-term US presence in
Afghanistan should be somehow scuttled. Also, the
Taliban have transformed, which is what the direct
contacts between them and the US (without
Islamabad's knowledge) suggest.
Above all,
Iran's comfort level is much higher today
regarding a fair deal in an Afghan settlement for
the Afghan groups with which Iran has enjoyed
historical and cultural links. The old-style
Pashtun dominance of Afghanistan is a non-starter
as there has been a sort of "political awakening"
among the Afghan people.
Iran also would
factor in that the US invasion of Afghanistan in
2001 and the ensuing downstream consequences have
greatly reduced the capacity of the Pakistani
state to dictate an Afghan settlement
unilaterally. Karzai is the best bet under the
present circumstances for both Iran and Pakistan
as the leader of an "Afghan-led" peace process.
All these elements have contributed to the broad
convergence of interests between Iran, Pakistan
and Afghanistan.
How this convergence
plays out in the coming weeks and months will have
a significant bearing on the course of events in
Afghanistan and it will no doubt impact the
reconciliation process with the Taliban.
Iran will have the maximum interest in
forging a regional axis out of this broad
convergence of interests and concerns and making
it a real driving force that shapes events to come
rather than acts as a mere catalyst. But it takes
two - or in this case three - to tango.
Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar was a
career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service. His
assignments included the Soviet Union, South
Korea, Sri Lanka, Germany, Afghanistan, Pakistan,
Uzbekistan, Kuwait and Turkey.
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