Word: afghanistans
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Iran experts say Tehran's broad interests in Afghanistan are the same as Washington's. The Islamic Republic doesn't want to see a return to chaos on its eastern flank, which would probably lead to a massive refugee influx. As a Shi'ite state, it would see the return to power of militant Sunni hard-liners as a setback. And Iran, which faces a drug-addiction problem of alarming proportions, shares the U.S. desire to curtail Afghanistan's opium trade. If anything, "Tehran stands to lose much more than Washington if Afghanistan reverts back to an al-Qaeda-infested...
...shared interests may no longer be enough to get Ahmadinejad to go along with Obama's plans in Afghanistan. "Many of the hard-liners who are today running Iran define their foreign policy priorities as that which is opposed to the United States," says Sadjadpour. "They may hate the Taliban, but they just might hate the United States more." Says Dobbins, who now heads the Rand Corp.'s International Security and Defense Policy Center: "The best we can probably hope for is that Iran continues to do no harm...
...Suleimani has been active in Afghanistan as well, having visited Kabul several times. Mark Fowler of Persia House says the Quds Force has probably "been putting into place covert infrastructure and developing clandestine relationships aimed both at securing Iranian interests in Afghanistan as well as providing Iran with a capability to strike U.S. forces in the event it is [deemed] necessary...
...Dobbins says he doesn't think it will go that far. "This is not in Iran's long-term interest, and they will not do it unless their competition with the U.S. comes to dominate their policy toward Afghanistan, which it has not to date," he says. Sadjadpour is not so sanguine, warning, "It [wouldn't] be the first time Iran has cut off its nose to spite its face...
...pictures of Afghanistan's dangerous Korengal Valley...