One further thought on the mini-"opening" to Iran, especially if the Guardian is right that State is going to get its way finally and be allowed by the White House to open a US interests section in Teheran.
I think the White House has finally become seriously spooked about Pakistan. When Benazir was assassinated, they lost Plan A and there never was a Plan B. They've been treading water while watching things go from bad to worse in both Pakistan's domestic political chaos and in the border areas with Afghanistan. The US doesn't have more troops to put in, and even if there were a few more brigades available, everybody (except Mr "I authored the Surge(TM)" McCain) seems to realize that the military isn't going to solve this problem, it's only a finger in the dike.
Whoever is the new President come January, US-Pakistan policies are going to have to be reworked entirely. The Biden-Lugar economic aid package, which Obama is sponsoring, is just the first step.
But one factor surely is common to any options for dealing with Af-Pak -- keep western Pakistan stable. Which means having cooperative, if not cordial, relations with the Iranians re Afghanistan has become more than just desirable -- it's an absolute imperative.
Bill Varner at Bloomberg reports today on this topic, although it's framed as the sorts of trouble Iran could cause if it were attacked. However, Varner's observations are equally relevant to the options the US faces in adjusting its approach to the Afghanistan-Pakistan gordian knot.
Khalizad is making noises about the potential mischief Iran could make, and US Ambassador William Wood is claiming that Iran is helping arm the Taliban, under the "fingers in every pot" theory of influence. The Iranians themselves are miffed that the US didn't build on their initial cooperation when the US first invaded Afghanistan, so they're not rushing to help the US counter the Taliban. One assumes, however, that the Iranians aren't eager for western Afghanistan to become a Sunni fundamentalist hotbed. So the US objective should be to persuade the Iranians to shift back to their more cooperative mode on the Taliban.
While the world focuses on tensions between Afghanistan and Pakistan 800 miles to the east, U.S. officials keep watch on Iran's expanding presence in Herat and the surrounding province of 2 million people. The region might play a major role if conflict erupts over Iran's nuclear program.
Should Iran's nuclear ambitions spark hostilities, it would use its sway in western Afghanistan as a ``bargaining chip,'' said Afghan-born Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and former envoy to Kabul. If attacked, Iran ``could make life difficult for us'' in Afghanistan, he said in an interview.
Iran has ``intelligence operatives everywhere, military commanders who work for them'' in the region who could be deployed to stir up trouble, including riots, said Barnett Rubin, an Afghanistan specialist at New York University's Center on International Cooperation.
For now, Tehran's investment of $500 million in the region has helped the U.S. by minimizing the influence of the Taliban extremists who once ruled the country and the sort of violence they have inflicted on southern and eastern Afghanistan. Iran paved half of Herat's streets and 40 miles of highway leading north, built schools and health clinics and partnered with Afghan companies in an industrial park.
``It's not just investments, but also trade,'' said Ali Shah Ahmedi, the 43-year-old manager of Herat's Tejarat Hotel. ``I have Iranian businessmen staying here all the time, coming to buy or sell goods'' such as packaged foods and motorcycles.
Sana, 42, holds forth from his office in the Herat Trade Center, a modern nine-story building of gleaming blue glass that helped inspire residents' nickname for their city: ``the Dubai of Afghanistan.'' A hotel, law offices and a finance company that supports farmers are connected by an Afghanistan rarity: an elevator.
Traffic lights in Herat work, in contrast to the capital, Kabul, so vehicles flow smoothly around the Blue Mosque, an 800- year-old, blue-tiled landmark. Herat is cleaner than Kabul, with more trees and parks, and less dangerous, with fewer visible police and troops.
Ties between Iran and Herat run deep. The city was the capital of 15th-century Persia, and Iran held Herat until midway through the 19th century. Heratis, mostly Sunni Muslims, today speak a dialect closer to the Farsi spoken in Tehran than the Dari used in Kabul.
Predominantly Shiite Iran opposed the Sunni Taliban -- who refused to educate girls when they ran Afghanistan, among other strictures -- as extreme.
After the Taliban were toppled for harboring the terrorists behind the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Tehran's government helped the U.S. and the UN begin the political transition that led to Hamid Karzai's election as president.
Iran's leaders feel that contribution wasn't properly acknowledged, said Manouchehr Mottaki, its foreign minister. The slight explains their refusal to help fight the Taliban's current insurgency, he said.
``We limit our cooperation with Afghanistan to helping reconstruct the country,'' Mottaki told reporters at the UN on July 2.
William Wood, the U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan, said Iran now helps arm the Taliban. Tehran's policy is to ``make everyone a loser'' in Afghanistan, he said in a Kabul interview.
Karzai is ``walking a very fine line'' and doesn't accuse Iran of actively supporting the insurgents, said Humayun Hamidzada, the president's chief spokesman.
``President Karzai believes Iran has a positive role to play in Afghanistan,'' Hamidzada said last week in Kabul. ``We are working with the U.S. and Iran, and don't want to become the battleground for their conflict.''
Iran's presence in Afghanistan will be an issue for the next U.S. president.[No kidding!!!]
I would be astonished if the Bush Administration were able to make significant headway with the Iranians on Afghanistan, even though it's clearly in both nations' interest to cooperate. The calendar is increasingly becoming a tyrant for the Bush Admin. There are too many interrelated regional issues within which the nuclear matters (and Iran's long-term security interests) will have to be addressed, and too few months until the height of the election campaign. It's too hard to break the Iranian relations into discrete pieces -- nuclear, Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, etc. -- because they're so intertwined. So there's really no way to avoid linkage.
The Bush Administration would also have to go a long way to convince the Iranians they should deal with Bush now rather than wait for the new US President. And whoever the elected President is, he's going to want to have his own say in any overall deal with the Iranians.
However, W seems to be heavily invested in "legacy" planning. I expect he'd like to be able to claim credit for having "laid the foundations" for future progress on these issues to mitigate the blame for leaving an unholy mess behind in Af-Pak. Hence his stated intention, as Haggai noted, that "he expected his remaining months in office to 'leave behind a multilateral framework' for dealing with Iran."
It will be interesting to see how far Bush's commitment to his own "legacy" leaves McCain dangling in the wind on the campaign trail.
UPDATED: Another sign that the White House is increasingly spooked by Afghanistan-Pakistan is this AP interview yesterday with an unidentified "defense official." It suggests the intensity of the scramble underway to meet the needs for additional forces in Afghanistan, which Sec Gates and Adm Mullen have been discussing with the press:
Senior military officials are looking across the services to identify smaller units and other equipment that could be sent to Afghanistan, according to a defense official.
Although there are no brigade-sized units that can be deployed quickly into Afghanistan, military leaders believe they can find a number of smaller units such as aviation, engineering and surveillance troops that can be moved more swiftly, said the official, who requested anonymity because the discussions are private.
The moves are expected to happen within weeks rather than months, the official said.
The decisions are being made against the backdrop of shifting priorities for the U.S. military, and were discussed during a meeting Wednesday of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
No wonder McCain suddenly announced the need for one of his Surges(TM) for Afghanistan on Tuesday.
Cross-posted at American Footprints.
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