1. Iran and Afghanistan almost went to war in 1998.
Amid escalating tensions with the Taliban, Iran massed 20, 000 troops on its 560-mile border with Afghanistan in 1998. This followed the Taliban defeat of the Northern Alliance in Mazar-e Sharif and the massacre of over 2000 people—mostly Shia Hazara Afghans—and the kidnapping and murder of eight Iranian diplomats and one Iranian journalist. Iran’s Foreign Ministry likened the dead diplomats to the “martyrs” of the Iran-Iraq War. The Taliban reacted to Iranian threats by burning down the library of Iran’s cultural center in the city. "Iran must know that if the soil of Afghanistan is attacked, we will target Iranian cities and the entire responsibility will rest with Iranian authorities,” a Taliban spokesman threatened. Iran did not invade, but instead increased support to the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance.
2. Iran helped the United States to overthrow the Taliban.
Following the assassination on September 9, 2001 of Iran’s Afghan Tajik ally, the Northern Alliance commander Ahmad Shah Massoud, and the jihadist attack on the United States two days later, Iran and the United States found common cause in Afghanistan. As former President Mohammad Khatami put it in a BBC interview, “The Taliban was our enemy. America thought the Taliban was their enemy too. If they toppled the Taliban, it would serve the interests of Iran.” Iran participated in the United Nations’ “Six Plus Two” talks on the future of Afghanistan, allowed the U.S. to transport humanitarian goods through its territory, and suggested targets for U.S. bombers. Iran also committed an estimated $660 million to the country’s post-war reconstruction.
3. Javad Zarif convinced the Northern Alliance to back Hamid Karzai.
When the Northern Alliance, backed by U.S. air power, took Kabul in 2001, its leadership, which was made up mainly of Tajiks, hoped to promote its own ethnic interests. But according to James Dobbins, who was then U.S. special envoy for Afghanistan, Iran’s envoy, Javad Zarif (who is now foreign minister), suggested Hamid Karzai, a Pashtun, as leader of Afghanistan when he attended the Bonn Conference on Afghanistan that year.
Zarif later convinced the Northern Alliance leader Younis Qanooni to accept Karzai, who was also favored by the United States, as president. Although Iran didn’t have especially close ties with him, Zarif likely saw him as someone who could unite disparate parties and form a stable government.
4. Karzai’s chief of staff received “bags of money” from Iran.
In 2010, Karzai told a press conference that Iran provides €700, 000 at regular intervals (he didn’t specify how often) to his chief of staff, Umar Daudzai, to pay Karzai’s office expenses. He insisted that the payments were “nothing hidden,” and that the United States had done the same thing. “We are grateful for Iranian help in this regard,” Karzai was quoted as saying in The Guardian. “Afghanistan and Iran have neighbourly relations...[They] will go on and we'll continue to ask for cash help from Iran."
5. Iran aided Taliban attacks on U.S. forces.
U.S.-Iranian cooperation in Afghanistan declined following George W. Bush’s 2002 State of the Union “Axis of Evil” speech, and the escalation of the two countries’ dispute over Iran’s nuclear program. Elements within Iran, says Shashank Joshi of the Royal United Services Institute, then supplied advanced improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, to some Taliban forces. Taliban attacks using those devices took place over a sufficiently long period, Joshi says, that it’s likely Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, tacitly approved the move.
Iran calibrated its attacks to cause problems for U.S. troops, but limited them so as not to provoke an attack on Iran, a RAND Corporation expert Ali Scotten says. “Their main goal has been to bleed the U.S. within Afghanistan and to send the U.S. a message that, ‘If you continue to isolate us, or if you think about attacking us, these are some of the levers that we have.’”
6. A captured Taliban commander claimed Iran offered him money to sabotage Afghanistan’s water supply.
Iran and Afghanistan contest access to water from the Helmand River, and water disputes between the two countries date back more than a century. A 1973 accord has never been fully implemented because of the Iranian Revolution and protracted chaos in Afghanistan. Iranians near Hamun lakes in Sistan-Baluchistan are susceptible to Afghan water cutoffs. Afghanistan claims that Iran has aided insurgents to block dam-building projects. In 2011, a captured Taliban commander said Iran had offered him $50,000 to sabotage the Kamal Khan Dam in Nimroz Province.
7. Some Afghans worry about becoming Iran’s puppets.
Iran wields substantial “soft” influence in Afghanistan through its reconstruction efforts and support for pro-Iranian institutions such as schools and mosques, and its provision of books to schools and universities. It has also built a major madrassa in Kabul that promotes Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s premise for the foundation of Islamic states, the velayat-e faqih, or “guardianship of the jurist.”
While most Afghan officials take a positive and pragmatic view of Iran’s role in their country, says Shashank Joshi of the Royal United Services Institute, there’s a degree of “cultural angst” over the scope of Iranian influence, especially among Afghan journalists and intellectuals. Some Shia politicians in Afghanistan are eager not to be seen as Iranian puppets so as to preserve ties with the West.
8. Iran has threatened to expel Afghan refugees.
Following the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, hundreds of thousands of Afghans fled to Iran. Iran initially treated them well, and provided them with health care, subsidized food and basic education for their children. Some returned to Afghanistan in the early 1990s following the collapse of the communist government, but the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in 1994 brought another mass flight.
There are about 2 million Afghans in Iran today, and many hold a low status as undocumented immigrants. During times of sanctions-induced strain in particular, some Iranians have accused them of stealing jobs and committing crimes. Iran has no long-term strategy to assimilate Afghans, and has pressured the Afghan government by threatening to expel them en masse, as when it wanted to prevent Afghanistan from signing bilateral agreements with the United States.
9. India is Iran’s closest ally in Afghanistan.
Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Iran and India both backed the Northern Alliance to counter Pakistani influence through the Taliban and other Sunni extremists, a goal they still share. In aid of that aim, Iran has helped to facilitate Indian access to Central Asian markets through a joint port development project at Chabahar on the Gulf of Oman, and collaboration on Delaram-Zaranj Highway, which connects Chabahar to the Kandahar-Herat Highway. India has invested tens of millions of dollars in both projects, since it doesn’t consider land routes through Pakistan an option. Iran hopes its cooperation with India will help to stabilize Afghanistan.
10. Iranian and U.S. interests in Afghanistan are once again closely aligned.
Iran’s policy toward Afghanistan, some argue, has been relatively moderate, but may change if tensions increase between Iran and the United States. Iran has opposed long-term U.S. presence in the country, including the Bilateral Security Agreement Afghanistan is negotiating with the United States. But Iran and the United States both wish to suppress Sunni extremism, stabilize the country, and counter narcotics trafficking from Afghanistan through Iran, which in turn funds the Taliban. “The silver lining, says Ali Scotten from RAND, is that even if U.S.-Iran relations don’t improve, as long as Iran continues to pursue its own interests in Afghanistan—maintaining a stable Afghanistan that’s thriving economically—that will ultimately be in U.S. interests.”
Sources:
Iran and the West. Dir. Norma Percy. BBC. 2009.
Milani, Mohsen. Iran and Afghanistan. 1 December 2010. 8 August 2014
Nader, Alireza, Ali G.Scotten, Ahmad Idrees Rahmani, Robert Stewart, Leila Mahnad. Iran's Influence in Afghanistan: Implications for the U.S. Drawdown. Santa Monica: RAND Corporation, 2014.
Olcott, Martha Brill. Iran's Unaviodable Influence over Afghanistan. 15 August 2013. 8 August 2014
Interviews:
Shashank Joshi, Royal United Services Institute
Ali Scotten, RAND Corporation
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