[R-G] Is Iran meddling in Afghanistan?

[Anthony Fenton]

Is Iran meddling in Afghanistan?
President Hamid Karzai, in meetings in Washington this week, said  
Iran is a valuable ally. But Afghan officials have grown increasingly  
wary of their Western neighbor.
By Mark Sappenfield | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

from the August 8, 2007 edition

http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0808/p06s01-wosc.html?page=1

Islam Qala, Afghanistan - Iran's broadening influence beyond its  
border with Iraq, together with its pursuit of nuclear technology,  
has Europe and the US on alert.

Now, its role along its opposite border here in Afghanistan is facing  
scrutiny, as well. It was a source of disagreement between President  
Bush and Afghan President Hamid Karzai during the past two days of  
talks at Camp David.

Mr. Karzai told CNN just before his meeting with Bush that Iran "has  
been a helper and a solution."

But key members of the Bush administration disagree, with Mr. Bush  
saying Aug. 6 that the burden was on Iran to prove that it is not a  
"destabilizing force."

Both views could be correct, say experts and Afghan officials, and  
they reflect the subtlety of Iran's efforts to play both sides – to  
support the fledgling Karzai government, yet also to secure its own  
strategic aims in the region and beyond.

The interception of Iranian-made weapons in Afghanistan, as well as  
reports of increased insurgent activity along the Iranian border, are  
seen as a message to the West, in particular.

"They're saying, 'We're cooperating on the ground,' " says Amin  
Tarzi, director of Middle East Studies at Marine Corps University in  
Quantico, Va. " 'But we can make a mess for you much bigger than  
Iraq' " if Europe and the US keep threatening action against Iran's  
nuclear program.

Iran plays two games in Afghanistan

Since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, Iran has been a useful  
neighbor to Afghanistan, maintaining peace along its border and  
undertaking a variety of development projects, particularly here in  
the border province of Herat.

Given that Iran and the Taliban were enemies who nearly went to war  
in 1998, "Iran benefited from the fall of the Taliban, too," says  
Sultan Ahmad Baheen, spokesman for the Afghan Ministry of Foreign  
Affairs.

Yet even as Afghanistan maintains a diplomatic gloss toward its  
powerful neighbor, Afghan government officials are worried that Iran  
is meddling to gain leverage on a variety of issues, both within the  
country and with the Western nations whose troops are deployed here.

"Iran is playing two games," says Mohammed Rafiq Shahir, president of  
the Council of Professionals, a group of analysts and businesspeople  
in Herat.

"The first policy is to support the government because it prefers  
this to the Sunni extremists of the Taliban," he says. "The second  
game is an anti-American policy: Whatever they can do to defeat  
Americans here, they will do it."

Iranian officials have repeatedly denied such allegations. Indeed, it  
is a matter of tradition in Afghanistan to blame the nation's woes on  
the interference of outsiders. But normally, such allegations are  
levied primarily at Pakistan, whose intelligence services are seen as  
funding and harboring Taliban leadership. By contrast, Afghanistan's  
relations with Iran during the past six years have been cordial, even  
exceptional.

"For most of the past few years, Iran has always been singled out as  
an exemplary neighbor by all sides," says Professor Tarzi.

It is one reason that Karzai would be loath to enter a war of words  
with Iran, experts say. He cannot afford to alienate what has been a  
close and peaceful ally. But some government officials are voicing  
concerns about what they call Iran's cautious yet deliberate efforts  
to gain influence in Afghanistan recently.

After years of goodwill, the criticism suggests a gradual shift in  
the relations of the two countries. There is no irrefutable evidence  
of wrongdoing, officials say, but rather a mounting of clues.

In recent weeks, the commander of the Afghan Border Police for the  
region bordering Iran, Col. Rahmatullah Safi, has been outspoken  
about Iran. In addition to the seizure of Iranian-made weapons in his  
territory, he alleges that Iran is harboring a hit squad led by  
former mujahideen commander Yahya Khortarak, which targets local  
leaders. Other security officials suggest that there is an Iranian  
terrorist training camp near the Afghan border.

It is doubtful that Iran would want to topple the Karzai regime,  
analysts say. Under the inclusive Western-backed government, Shiites  
have unprecedented power, despite the fact that they make up only 12  
percent of the population. As a center of Shiite power, Iran would  
not wish to threaten such a delicate sectarian balance.

But with Europe and the United States talking tough about Iran's  
nuclear program, Afghanistan represents an opportunity for Iran to  
shift circumstances in its favor. "They're always trying to gain more  
leverage in these talks," says Tarzi.

Afghanistan struggles with refugees

The same is true with regard to Afghanistan itself. Earlier this  
year, Iran began deporting thousands of Afghan refugees. Though Iran  
was perfectly at liberty to do so, the abruptness of the decision,  
combined with the sheer number of deportees and the fact that many of  
them had legal documents to remain in Iran, pointed to a motive  
beyond expedience or impatience.

Water-rights issues of crucial importance to Iran are now in the  
balance, as well as Afghanistan's willingness to support the US and  
Europe in their anti-Iran campaign. The sudden arrival of thousands  
of jobless Afghans into a country ill-prepared to absorb them was  
designed to remind Kabul of Iran's ability to make life difficult for  
Afghanistan, critics say.

Here, along Afghanistan's border with Iran, beneath a massive  
admonitory portrait of Ayatollah Khomeini, the buses still often come  
more than once an hour.

They bring Afghans like Mir Mohammed Safari, a teenager who says he  
lived in Iran legally for seven years before being rounded up from  
his workplace without notice, taken here, and then shunted  
unceremoniously across the border.

He is one of thousands of Afghan workers who fled to Iran, either for  
safety or employment, who are now being thrown out.

For his new life in Afghanistan, he has only what he could fit into a  
plastic bag. "From everything, I brought this," he says with a wry  
smile.

Fellow refugee Javed Sharifi squints in the sunlight, as the wind  
whips violently over this arid border checkpoint.

Mr. Sharifi has only 500 Afghanis – $10 – to try to get to his home  
on the opposite side of Afghanistan, some 400 miles away. Says  
Sharifi: "I have no idea how I am going to get to Takhar."

• Mr. Sappenfield is the New Delhi correspondent for the Monitor and  
USA Today.