Word: iranianized
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...estimates it is home to 1.7 million opiate addicts, a burden that Iran and the West have a mutual incentive in combating. As part of the new tone from Washington, President Obama's Afghan strategy calls for a regional approach to secure Afghanistan, one that would be disadvantaged by Iranian non-participation. NATO partners are pushing for direct engagement with Tehran, possibly through a "contact group...
...Iranian official in Herat counters that a stable Afghanistan is in Iran's best interest. In 2006, Afghanistan received 4% of Iran's total exports, yielding more than $500 million in revenue. Stressing his government's commitment to a stable region, the official added that since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, Tehran has sent Kabul millions in humanitarian aid - more than $500 million, according to the Congressional Research Service...
More recently, Afghan security forces found a cache of Iranian-made explosives near the Bakhshabad Dam in Farah province, a $2.2 million coalition-sponsored project set to boost power and water supply in the area. Gen. Malham Pohanyar, chief of the West Region border police, says other comparable findings abound. He says his men gave chase last week to arms smugglers who detonated their load as they fled in the dark.However, he concedes there is lack of hard proof implicating the Tehran regime...
Most analysts doubt direct Iranian involvement. There is speculation that rogue elements of Iran's Revolutionary Guard are to blame, the same way members of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency are known to abet militants in the eastern borderlands. Others point out the arms might be smuggled in from third countries. But there is consensus that Tehran, despite its historical aversion to the Taliban, has shown a willingness to "interfere in Afghan affairs as leverage against the United States when threatened," says Haroun Mir, a security analyst in Kabul...
...over by force. Shipments of school text books offensive to Afghanistan's majority Sunni Muslims have also started crossing the border from Shi'a Iran in greater number, according to Rafiq Shahir, head of the Herat Professionals' Council, who claims that mounting communal tensions could boil over because of Iranian influence. "We need to have good relations because we are neighbors, with deep economic and cultural ties," Shahir says, "but we are against Iranian politics here...