The Taliban, which entered Kabul on Sunday and announced the creation of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, has a complicated relationship with Iran, as they say, from hatred to love.
On August 15, 2021, when President Ashraf Ghani fled from Kabul and the staff of the American embassy (over which thick smoke from burning documents poured and helicopters circled) were urgently evacuated, the Iranian Tasnim News Agency published a refutation of the message that between the Iranian security forces and the Taliban "Clashes and fighting took place at the border at the Islam-Kala checkpoint.
“A security source told us that, according to the investigation, a Taliban member entered Iran by mistake and that today the border guards, informing him of border laws, brought him back to Afghanistan,” Tasnim reported.
Iran is very sensitive to any messages and "fakes", as it claims, aimed at confronting the Taliban.
Why?
Let's try to figure it out.
Well, let's start with the fact that Afghanistan and Iran have a common language of Dari (Farsi-Kabuli, the Afghan version of Farsi) and 921 km of a common border.
As well as bilateral relations established in 1935 - at a time when both countries had a monarchical regime (in Afghanistan - Zakir Shah, in Iran - Shah Pahlavi).
And everything, in general, was not bad until 1978, when the April (communist) revolution took place in Afghanistan, and in Iran, respectively, the Islamic revolution in 1979.
The communists and Shiite mullahs somehow did not find a common language, and therefore, even after the withdrawal of the Soviet contingent, in the period from 1996 to 2001, Iran supported the Northern Alliance and even participated in the joint operation of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) against the Taliban "(1996 is considered, in general, the year of the birth of the Taliban in the bowels of Pakistan's inter-agency intelligence service ISI).
The Taliban attacked the Hazara Shiites in Afghanistan, which provoked a corresponding harsh reaction from Tehran, and in 1998, all nine Iranians who were there during the Taliban seizure of the city - eight diplomats and one journalist - were shot at the Iranian consulate in Mazar-i-Sharif.
However, according to another version, those eight diplomats at the consulate in Mazar-i-Sharif were none other than Qods Forces operatives, which Pakistani intelligence was well aware of.
And supposedly such a daring attack on the consulate, protected by diplomatic immunity and international conventions, did not go unanswered by Tehran.
The Washington Institute reports that in response to the killing of Iranian diplomats (intelligence agents), Supreme Leader Khamenei gave Qasem Soleimani, who led the Quds Force that same year, 48 hours to organize a response and a military invasion.
According to Soleimani's plan, developed in cooperation with the Northern Alliance, the Iranians were to capture Herat and attract Taliban forces there, which would allow the alliance to seize Kabul with lightning speed and unite with the Iranians in Herat.
But the 48-hour blitzkrieg was canceled at the last moment.
Carpet dealer in Herat province
AFP
© BEHROUZ MEHRI
In 2001, the Quds Force actually helped the Americans during the invasion of Afghanistan, until suddenly, like a bolt from the blue, the 43rd President of the United States, George W. Bush, on January 29, 2002, in his annual address to Congress, ranked Iran as helping the Americans in Afghanistan and Iraq, towards the world "axis of evil".
The consequences for all settings of US international policy in the region were truly catastrophic.
The Middle East Journal devoted, for example, a whole article to this, "What the Axis of Evil metaphor has done to Iran" (2007).
Eloquently episodes of relations between Iran, the United States and the Taliban BEFORE Bush Jr.'s historic speech and AFTER are described in Dexter Filkins' wonderful essay The Shadow Commander in The New Yorker (09/23/2013):
“In the chaotic days after 9/11, Ryan Crocker, then a senior State Department official, flew discreetly to Geneva to meet with a group of Iranian diplomats. <…> Even before the bombing began, Crocker sensed that the Iranians were losing patience with the Bush administration, believing that it took too long for them to attack the Taliban. At a meeting in early October 2001, a leading Iranian negotiator stood up and threw a pile of papers on the table. “If you guys don't stop building castles in the air and start shooting, this will never happen. When you're ready to shoot, you know where to find me. " And he left the room. “It was a great moment,” Crocker said. Cooperation between the two countries continued during the first phase of the war.At one point, the lead negotiator handed Crocker a map detailing the locations of the Taliban forces. “Here's our advice: first hit them here, then here. And here is the logic. " A stunned Crocker asked, "Can I take notes?" The Iranian replied: "You can keep the card for yourself."
The article describes how, at the request of the United States, an Al-Qaeda mediator was brought in from Mashhad ** and how Suleimani was pleased with the ongoing cooperation.
Until that very night happened that changed everything.
“Crocker, who was by that time the deputy head of the American embassy in Kabul, was awakened at night by an aide and said that President Bush had just called Iran an“ axis of evil ”in Washington.
Like many senior American diplomats, Crocker was taken by surprise.
Suleimani was furious, saying that "it might be time to rethink our relationship with the Americans."
<…> Remembering that time, Crocker shook his head.
“We were so close.
One word in one speech changed history. "
Overnight, the Bush Jr. administration put Iran, which had collaborated with the Americans, and the Taliban on a par.
(However, there is another opinion on this matter. Thomas Jocelyn of the National Endowment for Democracy *** (USA) believes that the Taliban delegation led by Khayrulla Khairkhwa signed an alliance with the IRGC in 2001, several months before the US invasion and before the most terrible terrorist attack in history - "11.09.", and that is why, looking at the fate that befell Afghanistan, the Iranians began to help the Americans).
Iran has adopted new inputs about itself and is now building relationships with the Taliban, adopting the Pakistani model.
This followed formal logic: the Taliban, just like Iran, takes a hostile position towards the United States.
Ansar corps based in Mashhad was created for the Afghan project in the IRGC.
Iran knew very well that Saudi Arabia and the UAE were helping Pakistan to finance the Taliban - Pakistan itself is not rich enough to support such a movement.
Therefore, Iran got involved in the process, and for some time Pakistan allowed Iran to help the Taliban with money and weapons - until it began to form a pool of commanders and their agenda.
In 2003, the US invaded Iraq - now the Americans and their coalition allies blocked Iran not only from the east (Afghanistan), but also from the west (Iraq).
In 2005, when Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ("President of the IRGC") became President of Iran, the strategy of "making Americans problems" in these two countries became No. 1.
“The enemy of my enemy is my friend” - apparently, under this motto in 2014 in Mashhad, the IRGC opened a command center for the Taliban, where they received training and funding.
Subsequently, this office was transformed into a real shura (military governing body) of the Taliban.
In contrast to the Pakistani Quetta Shura, the Iranian Mashhad Shura appeared.
Mid-level commanders in Afghanistan received from Iran, according to the WSJ, both rifles and ammunition, and a salary of $ 580 a month.
In addition to the commander of Al-Quds, Qasem Soleimani, the current head of Al-Quds, Ismail Kaani, and in recent years the head of the IRGC intelligence Hussein Tayeb, played the leading roles in "re-educating" and nurturing the Taliban loyal to Iran.
Kaani has overseen Quds in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Iran worked seriously with the Taliban and, as a result, was able to gain the loyalty of two authoritative Taliban leaders - Haybatullah Akhundzada and Akhtar Mansur, who began to visit Iran frequently and receive all kinds of help from the mullah regime - from money and weapons to instructions.
Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansour, Taliban leader killed in Pakistan
Reuters
© Taliban Handout
But Pakistan (which is traditionally backed by Britain) did not want to lose its "monopoly on the Taliban."
The Taliban movement was fostered as an instrument of Pakistan's influence on Afghanistan in order to include it in the Pakistani orbit of influence and create security threats to neighboring states, including Iran.
In May 2016, when Akhtar Mansur was returning from Iran, he was killed by a drone strike in Pakistani Ahmad Val.
An article by The New York Times dated 09/08/2017 contains phenomenal details of this murder, shedding light on how Pakistan and Iran began to divide the Taliban among themselves and what came of it.
NYT reporters are building their investigation with the Presidential Adviser and Deputy Governor of Kandahar, as well as General Abdul Razik, Chief of Police for Kandahar Province.
So, Mullah Mansour always traveled to Iran on a fake Pakistani passport with an assumed name, with full knowledge of the Pakistani intelligence service ISI.
In simple terms, recently Mansour began to rebel against Pakistani pressure and tried to find support from Iran and Russia in order to maneuver and negotiate on his own terms.
He allegedly resisted orders from Pakistani intelligence to destroy Afghan infrastructure (schools, bridges and roads), adding to the cost of the war for the Afghan government.
He opposed Haqqani, a protege of Pakistanis, and developed a regional network of his leaders to get them out of Pakistani influence.
Ten days before his assassination, he sent messages to all of his commanders asking what they thought about the peace talks with Kabul.
On his last trip to Mashhad, Mansur met not only with the Iranians, but allegedly also with the representative of Russia.
When he reached the Pakistani border on his way back from Iran, he was detained and released several hours later.
Leaving after interrogation, he took a taxi to Quetta and in the car began to call his family, giving the last orders and saying goodbye - he felt that he did not have long to live.
Six hours later,
just 20 miles from the Afghan border
, Hellfire missiles fired by a drone crashed into his car, which burned to the ground (similarly, Quds Force chief Qassem Soleimani was eliminated in Baghdad).
Residents of Pakistan near the destroyed car in which Mullah Akhtar Mansur was.
Ahmad Val
AFP
Mansour became the first Taliban leader to be killed in Pakistan, which has served as a Taliban refuge for the past 16 years.
US President Barack Obama said then that Mullah Akhtar Mansur was killed by a US drone.
Be that as it may, the intervention of Iran and Russia in the Pakistani monopoly still happened, and it did not happen yesterday.
In March 2011, British special forces discovered 122mm missiles delivered to the Taliban in Afghanistan - straight from Iran.
A 2014 Pentagon report said that Iran has been helping the Taliban at least since 2007 (during the reign of Ahmadinejad).
Also from Iran, the Taliban received 120-mm mortars, anti-tank missiles, 1000 motorcycles, Dragunov precision rifles.
Taliban funding reached $ 190 million a year and allowed the Taliban to organize two training bases in Zahedan and Sistan.
The news, announced at the beginning of the column, about an alleged armed clash on the Iranian-Afghan border, which was joyfully smashed by many world media outlets, seems poorly realistic also in view of the fact that the same Ksirovsky Ansar corps operates in the western Afghan border province of Herat for at least two decades and has a thousandth agent base there.
What about what, but Iran definitely took care of its safety.
Judging by the speed of the fall of the provinces of Afghanistan and looking at this map, one cannot fail to notice that the Hazara, Shiite areas retreated to the Taliban without a fight.
And the Hazara regions are a direct Iranian zone of intra-Afghan influence.
The transition of the Hazaras under the banner of the Taliban took place bloodlessly against the background of the official greeting of the outgoing Foreign Minister Javad Zarif about the "peaceful transfer of power in Afghanistan."
This only means that Iran is inside the Afghan game and is one of the participants in its future division of spheres of influence.
According to Reuters, Iran controls nearly a third of all media in Afghanistan.
And Iranian business newspaper Financial Tribune reports that Iran has overtaken Pakistan as Afghanistan's largest trading partner since 2017.
The Kayhan newspaper, whose editor-in-chief is appointed by the supreme leader Khamenei, wrote on June 25, 2021 that “the current Taliban is different from the Taliban that we knew before and which decapitated people (I wonder what is the basis of such conclusions? -
Yu. Y.
) and "the Taliban even declared that they would not harm the Shiites of the country."
As they write in the comments under the posts of my beloved Russian journalist, "you also say."
And on July 6, 2021, the Javan newspaper (affiliated with the IRGC) posted on the page portraits of the "renewed" Taliban with the headline: "We are reformed."
The best thing is that the text under the photo read: "The group has been reformed, its leaders have become more mature, do not seek military occupation of Kabul, and will no longer harm diplomats and foreign citizens."
It seems that the IRGC believes in its pupils and the holy pedagogy of Mashhad, backed up by a dollar (for some reason not an Iranian rial), Russian sights, a Dragunov rifle and common sense.
In a July 30, 2021 article published by the Middle East Institute, Washington's oldest research institute for the Middle East, author Marie Abdi wonders what Iran's impact on the Taliban will be like when the Americans leave.
"Could the honeymoon of the IRGC and the Taliban continue?"
- reads the title.
Nobody knows this yet.
But in the very hours and minutes of August 15, when the Taliban occupied Kabul, Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan, boarded a high-ranking Afghan delegation, which included the speaker of parliament.
They were met by the Pakistani special envoy for Afghanistan Mohammad Sadik.
Although nothing was said to the press about the purpose of the emergency visit of the distinguished Afghan guests, one of the Islamabad officials told the Pakistani edition of The Express Tribune that Pakistan is planning a conference on the situation in Afghanistan soon, to which - attention!
- Foreign Ministers of Russia, China, Iran and other interested parties, including Turkey, will be invited.
In general, Quetta Shura defeated Mashhad Shura.
But now we have to reckon with the latter in the Afghan question.
* "Taliban" - the organization was recognized as terrorist by the decision of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation of February 14, 2003.
** "Al-Qaeda" - the organization was recognized as terrorist by the decision of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation dated 02.14.2003.
*** The National Endowment for Democracy is an organization whose activities are recognized as undesirable in the Russian Federation by the decision of the General Prosecutor's Office of 07/28/2015.
The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.