Iran has been the chief beneficiary of the Obama administration’s decision to throw in the towel on Iraq, and as Team Obama prepares to repeat its mistake in Afghanistan, Iranian authorities seek to make it two for two.
On June 1, Iran sponsored commemorations in Kabul to mark the 23rd anniversary of Ayatollah Khomeini’s death. From the accompanying BBC Persian photo essay and article, my American Enterprise Institute colleague Ahmad Majidyar—hands down the shrewdest analyst of Afghanistan and Pakistan in Washington—highlighted two points. First, Mohammad Akbari, a Shi’a jihadi leader now in Afghanistan’s parliament, declared, “Religious beliefs have no borders. Those who say today that Khomeini belongs to Iran will next day relate Prophet of Muslims Muhammad to Saudi Arabia.” However, Majidyar notes, some Afghans protested the pro-Iranian festivities. “This is Kabul, not Tehran or Qom,” some declared. Other held signs which read, “Puppets: no more betrayal.” Meanwhile, Iranian officials have ramped up pressure on Afghan politicians to reject the Strategic Cooperation Agreement, reportedly offering $25 million in bribes.
Afghans, like Iraqis, do not naturally favor the Islamic Republic. Persian culture is one thing; Tehran’s politics and its official ideology quite another. However, as Iranian proxies not too subtlety point out, “you may like the Americans better, but we will always be your neighbor.” But, Afghans have also never lost a war; rather, they defect to the winning side. With the sense that, under Obama, the United States has no staying power, the Iranian government is making its push to fill the vacuum—or as much as they can fill before Pakistan pushes back. Until Obama signals that victory matters more than the American political timeline, the Iranians will have the strategic advantage.
An effective strategy against Iran, whether by direct conventional warfare or subtler means, does not necessarily require long-term physical presence in Islamic nations whose leadership suspend their contempt for the United States just long enough to demand boodle.
So what do you propose, then? You seem to have lots of very subtle critique but little in the way of concrete proposals.
US has no leverage left any where. Our leverage was due to our economic status which sustained long operations. The US economy is in shambles and the projections are dismal. First take care of homeland. In the mean time work with regional powers…yes that includes Iran to boost Afghan society and economy.
You want a plan? If I we're Prez – an unscrupulous drone-loving, kill-list checking one like the current Prez – I'd play hardball with the mullahs in Iran through a weak-link: Dope. n nIranians love heroin and are a primary transit point and consumer of that product from Afghanistan. It corrupts their cops and security apparatus sure as our own Mexican-dope problem does here in USA – but that much more owing to it being, well, Iran so corrupt already. n nAs Prez, I wouldl co-opt that whole deal. By getting in good with the drug gangs, you get in good with the Taliban's money-supply and financial system. You're rooting around in it like a pig in – well, you know – just like them. Start looking the other way – and having drone-oops 'incidents' with Iranian border security trying to stop it same way we do with Pakistanis now. n nEmboldened drug-dealer clowns start running it into Mullahstan by the ton in response. Cast your corrupt tendrils through the resulting black-market network throughout Iranian society, finding handy addicts all over the place in their world – even their nuclear world – to get inside scoop. Begin compromising Iranian internal security with your cops-and-addicts-on-take network that such black-markets are always plugged into, n nIts nasty extralegal hard-ball, but it'd work. Smacks even of Iran-Contra and similar schemes, which worked for all their ethical lapses (hostages freed, Sandinistas defeated, all with money-under-the-table). And since this president has no ethical problem wasting Americans in Yemen of all places – among so many other ethical lapses on these subjects – what's stopping him from such a competent take-down? n nIn wars play to win, or don't play at all.
Be unambiguously an ally of Israel vis a vis the Palestinians. Rely on the Jordanians and the emirates and the Saudiis to the degree there are mutual interests, keep working the Egyptians and be skeptical of the Turkish Freedom and Justice Party. Leave Iraq. If you can't prosecute the war against the Taliban without the approval of the Karzai kleptocracy and an elaborate network of national/regional/village/local defense forces don't bother. These things usually break down. n nif you can't separate the Taliban from the other locals, don't bother. If you really don't know why the Taliban are a national security threat aside from what-if scenarios don't bother. If you think they are and can prosecute the war without the permission of Karzai prosecute it to win, and if you need to stay in country to fight the Al Qaeda and AQ at its current, not theoretical future, force level and you can do so without the permission of Karzai and the other warlord narcotics runners do so. n nIf and only if you are willing to secure the manpower resources to stop the recirculating of troops in country for multiple tours of duty. If you aren't give the army time to heal and retrench without the bs drawdown contemplated. Stay in to win with a definable enemy and a definable strategy on American terms or cut it off. n nBut right now we are trying to burn out kudzu by bribing a local warlord into letting us install a multi-village network of up-to-date agricultural communes operated on the latest scientific agricultural principals growing terraced rotated crops with a computer-driven irrigation station hooked up to hydraulically pumped aquifers. The ratio of tail to dog is back aswards.
Your opening paragraph is off the mark. Obama/pentagon don't want to throw in the towel…there is simply no money left to sustain massive operations. Author forgets we are in the midst of the greatest recession since the great depression of the 1930s…and China won't pay for our continued occupation of mid east!
Iran has been trying-unsuccessfuly-to exert a major influence over Pakistan and Afghanistan for how many years now? I dont think it would be any more successful if it had nukes. Hell, its about to lose its pal Baby Assad in Syria, which will weaken its client state Hizballahstan (formerly known as Lebanon.) I think the end result will be Obama crying and stamping his dainty feet impotently after Israel has kicked the crap out of Iran’s nuke program.