As the United States draws down its troops from the conflict-beleaguered Afghanistan, cracks are emerging that neighboring Iran is entrenching itself into – shoring up ties with formal government officials and ethnic minorities, as well as the Taliban and disgruntled new Taliban offshoots.
Iran is exerting it’s influence on Afghanistan, and supporting the Taliban brazenly now that we are gone.The vacuum we created is being filled by Iran.
Afghanistan is a mess, and always has been. But perhaps we should not have pulled out just yet?
Given Iran’s national patience, this is probably good for Afghanistan.
It’s definitely good for the Hazara.
Keep in mind, the other major Aghan language is Dari, and it is mutually intelligible with Persian. Afghans are largely Iranic peoples, and this the urheim of the Avestan language, which gave birth to Persian, Hindi and probably all Indo-Aryan-European languages.
It’s a rather historic and natural fit, far moreso than Russia, Great Britain or the US.
IRAN – We assess that Iran seeks to undermine U.S. democratic institutions, President Trump, and to divide the country in advance of the 2020 elections. Iran’s efforts along these lines probably will focus on on-line influence, such as spreading disinformation on social media and recirculating anti-U.S. content. Tehran’s motivation to conduct such activities is, in part, driven by a perception that President Trump’s reelection would result in a continuation of U.S. pressure on Iran in an effort to foment regime change."
Iran knows who their friends are. They’re still counting the billions.
Why did we go into Afghanistan? Answer…it was a response to 9/11 because we were told that this is where the training camps of terrorists were doing their training. K…now why…almost two decades later? How long does it take to accomplish this mission? What did we learn from Russia’s failures in Afghanistan? Why do we want to invade another country? Do we want other countries to invade us? Think about it?
…and remember that the same minds that led us to Afghanistan…did a 180 and took us into Iraq. Why was that? Weapons of mass destruction is what we were told…based on the intelligence of…wait for it…intelligence agencies…dontcha know.
We must respect the potential threat they are to our country but…it’s the government, not the Iranian people. Our current military strength renders their potential threat to be small…but…we still need to have our eye on them.
Imagine if Iran had been pursuing a Baloch policy in the US, maybe using all peoples of Plains Amerind descent as proxies. The US leadership would have nuked Tehran, Qom and Tabriz decades ago.
The approach I’d take…is motivating regime change by the Iranian people. I believe they are ripe…right now. I’d have to explore the methodology I’d apply but that is the road I’d take.
