On the eve of the major conference on Thursday in London that will bring together senior officials from all of the governments taking part in the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan as well as Afghanistan's neighbors, donors and the United Nations, Iran was still debating whether or not to attend.
However, even if the Iranians do not show up, they will for the immediate future continue to push internationally for a regional approach to stabilizing Afghanistan. This was one of the conditions Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki set for Iran to attend the meeting.
"The occupying forces are now facing great problems as they
have no comprehensive knowledge and information about Afghanistan and we are quite confident that they will leave the country regretfully," said Mohammad Reza Rahimi, Iran's first vice president, ahead of a pre-London warmer in Istanbul this week that brought together the heads of states of Turkey, Pakistan and Afghanistan, as well as representatives from China, Tajkistan, Turkmenistan and some international observers.
"Although Iran appreciates Turkey's constructive mediation between Kabul and Islamabad, we have some misgivings about Ankara's excessive involvement in reaching out to the extremists, who may be the net beneficiaries of all these conferences that pay so much attention to making a deal with them," said a Tehran University political science professor.
He added that the lack of any border between Turkey and Afghanistan and the absence of any strong historical links between the two countries set "definite limits" on the scope of Turkey's involvement in Afghan affairs. This was irrespective of Turkey's "token presence" as part of the multinational force; Turkey has close to 2,000 forces there and may send another 1,000 in the near future.
Ahead of the London summit, everyone seems to be on board with the idea of a "political solution to the conflict", to paraphrase the top US commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, in his recent interview with the Financial Times of London. Even Afghan President Hamid Karzai is reported to have come up with his own "reconciliation plan" that calls for the integration of aspects of the Taliban, provided that they lay down their arms, which appears somewhat wishful thinking.
The news from Pakistan, which uses the lever of the Taliban for its own "games of strategy" vis-a-vis New Delhi, is that the government has been in communication with the Taliban "at all levels".
Certainly, that is welcome news to the Taliban's main backers in Saudi Arabia, one of the few governments in the world that recognized the Taliban regime before its demise in 2001, and Tehran's main concern is that the London conference would be billed as a victory for the Saudi diplomacy that counts on close connections between Islamabad and Riyadh.
But then again, it is far from given that in this new hectic season of conference diplomacy on Afghanistan much change in the realities on the ground will emerge, including the much talked about transfer of authority in some areas to Afghan forces. If the latter were prepared and capable of assuming such control, Kabul would have by now managed to convince the occupying forces to leave. With the Afghan parliamentary elections now postponed to September over "security concerns", any hasty decision to reduce the presence of the multinational forces in favor of Afghan forces would most likely backfire and aggravate those security concerns.
Iran's conundrum, on the other hand, is that it seeks a greater and more prominent role at the table in London precisely at a time when Iran-Britain relations have hit a new low and there are strong moves in the Iranian parliament (Majlis) to substantially downgrade Tehran's diplomatic ties with London over the perceived anti-Iran positions of the British government. However, the fact that both Rahimi and British Foreign Secretary David Miliband were present at the Istanbul meeting may have broken some ice, depending on any discussions on the sidelines of that conference. Indeed, if the Turks are adamant about their mediation role, it would be fitting for them to mediate between Tehran and London, given their cordial relations with both sides.
"Iran's number one priority for Afghanistan right now is capacity building for the Kabul regime, on economic, political and, above all, security fronts," said another Tehran foreign policy expert at the think-tank, Center For Strategic Research. When asked what the number two priority is, he responded that it was a timetable for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's departure.
That may be, but the more immediate, and pressing, priority of Iran is to make its weight felt at the international forums on Afghanistan that are due to take place in 2010, including the Moscow meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in April. This is in light of Iran's observer status at the SCO, which comprises China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
In addition, Tehran is planning its own regional meeting on Afghanistan in late spring, hoping that it will have a better outcome than the trilateral conference in Pakistan two weeks ago that was by all accounts a failure. This was not least because Afghan Foreign Minister Rangin Dadfar Spanta had just learned that parliament had voted to replace him.
Since then, the Tehran media have been critical of Iran's Foreign Ministry for delivering a mini-victory to Pakistan, which does not quite see eye-to-eye with Iran or Afghanistan, given the serious frictions between Kabul and Islamabad over the former's suspicion of the latter's collusion with the Taliban.
There is also the delicate linkage between the Afghan quagmire and the Iran nuclear standoff and Tehran's ability to raise the costs there for the US, Germany, France and United Kingdom, ie, the key Western governments involved in the nuclear negotiations with Iran that are plotting more sanctions against Iran both unilaterally and multilaterally. Tehran is already very unhappy with Germany's cancellation of a huge gas deal after a recent meeting between Chancellor Angela Merkel and visiting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
No one should underestimate Iran's potential to cause a great deal of mischief in Afghanistan, where a number of warlords who resided in Iran for years during the Soviet occupation in the 1980s and the Taliban era in the late 1990s have strong ties with Tehran.
For now, however, Iran appears to be on the same page in the search for a "common approach", although sources tell this author that Iran considers the recent announcement by the UN pointman on Afghanistan regarding the UN's preparedness to remove the name of some Taliban leaders from its black list to be "premature".
This is in sharp contrast to Pakistan, which is seeking legitimacy for Taliban leader Mullah Omar, who is believed to be spending time in Pakistan. Tehran's concern is that any concessions granted to the Taliban at the conferences will enhance their legitimacy at the expense of Karzai's government, irrespective of Karzai's frantic conference diplomacy aimed at sparking a new level of international financial commitment to his country.
"Afghanistan's problem demands a regional solution. We do not accept unilateralism and we should not re-try the failed policies toward Afghanistan. The unilateral and military approach is not the solution," Mottaki stated at the trilateral meeting in Istanbul. He reiterated Tehran's stance that US President Barack Obama's military surge policy would only "exacerbate" the problem by intensifying anti-occupation sentiment in Afghanistan.
But the idea of a "common approach" as long as there are great divides between countries in terms of varying national interests, geopolitical considerations and security competitions appears vacuous, especially as Tehran is convinced that no matter how many times Afghan and Pakistan leaders meet to shake hands before the glare of the world media, the underlying causes of a growing security rift between the two countries remain.
As a result, in the coming months, if Tehran feels its pessimism is justified, it may back down from its "regional approach" and seek cooperation with Pakistan's chief nemesis, India, on Afghanistan. Indeed, all the signs indicate that when it comes to Afghanistan, another trilateral grouping consisting of Iran, India (another observer country at SCO) and Afghanistan may make more sense, at least as far as Iran's national security interests are concerned. The nub of Afghanistan's problem is, after all, its growing emergence at the nodal point of a grand competition between NATO and the SCO.
Kaveh L Afrasiabi, PhD, is the author of After Khomeini: New Directions in Iran's Foreign Policy (Westview Press) . For his Wikipedia entry, click here. His latest book, Reading In Iran Foreign Policy After September 11 (BookSurge Publishing , October 23, 2008) is now available.
Source:atimes.com/
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