Yesterday, NATO’s Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer suggested the organization engage Tehran to defeat the Taliban. “We need to stop looking at Afghanistan as if it were an island,” the alliance’s senior statesmen said. “We need a discussion that brings in all the relevant players: Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, China, Russia-and yes, Iran.”
Iran? Landlocked Afghanistan is indeed a troublesome spot, and NATO needs to employ more resources. Yet the solution is not to invite every troublemaker-big and small-in the region to lend a hand. Sometimes you just have to go out and defeat your enemies by yourself. Yes, the mullahs have no love for the Taliban, but the idea of allying with Iran is just absurd.
