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Iran has reached out to the Taliban in a bid to compete more effectively with Saudi Arabia in Afghanistan and to pressure the United States. The move is part of the broader Sunni-Shiite sectarian struggle.
A high-level Taliban delegation was in Tehran for three days of talks May 31-June 2, a spokesman for the Afghan Taliban said June 4. The Taliban delegation to Iran was led by Tayyeb Agha, a close confidant of Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar who has been involved in negotiations with the United States regarding a political arrangement in Afghanistan after the U.S. withdrawal. At the same time, another Afghan Taliban delegation attended a conference in the Iranian capital, though few details were available on the nature of that delegation or the conference.
Iran has significant historic and cultural ties to Afghanistan, including Dari, which is a Persian-based language and the one most widely spoken in Afghanistan, and Afghanistan's large Tajik minority population, who are a Persian-speaking people of Iranian origin. But Iran and the Afghan Taliban have historically had very poor relations. The Taliban considers the Shia heretics, and has badly mistreated the Hazara, an Afghan Shiite minority group. The two countries almost went to war in 1998 when the Taliban executed 11 Iranian diplomats in Mazar-i-Sharif.
Despite these poor ties, Iran has assisted the Taliban in its struggle against the Western forces that entered Afghanistan after the 2001 U.S.-led invasion. Tehran's support for the Taliban has been part of Iran's proxy struggle with the United States. The current outreach to the Taliban has a similar motivation, namely, Tehran is seeking to regain its footing in talks with Washington, which Iran plans to restart after its June 14 presidential election. The latest rounds of international sanctions, especially those targeting Iran's exports of crude oil, have greatly weakened the Iranian negotiation position.
At present, Iran's fortunes in other arenas of competition with the West and the Sunni world appear to be improving. The al Assad regime in Syria is experiencing gains against the Sunni opposition that is backed by the West, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar, while recent anti-government unrest in various Turkish cities is hampering the emergence of Turkey as a regional rival to Iran.
By reaching out to the Taliban, Tehran is trying to increase the pressure on the United States by reminding it that Washington's problems in Afghanistan are also far from resolved. Iran is already trying to set the stage for a revival of talks, as shown by recent suggestions by former senior Iranian nuclear negotiator Hossein Mousavian, who said in a March 30 article in The National Interest that U.S. Central Command chief Gen. Lloyd Austin should meet the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force.
The Iranian move to deal with the Taliban also has implications for Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Islamabad's influence with the Taliban already has waned due to shifting Pakistani intentions and weakened capabilities. Now, the new Pakistani government -- which is an ally of Saudi Arabia -- must contend with competition in Afghanistan from Iran.
Meanwhile, the Saudis fear U.S.-Iranian talks could ignore Riyadh's interests. Saudi-Iranian competition has become so fierce -- especially in the proxy war they are fighting in Syria -- that the influential Saudi journalist Abdel Rehman Rasheed of Al Arabiya wrote in an article published June 2 that Tehran will try to reach an understanding with the United States and Israel to undermine the interests of the Sunni Arab world. This is a deep Saudi fear, even though U.S.-Iranian talks still face enormous constraints. The Saudis had been hoping to use the Taliban to squeeze the Iranians, especially now that Riyadh's ally Nawaz Sharif has come to power in Pakistan. By engaging in talks with the Taliban, the Iranians have signaled to the Saudis that they also have ties to the Taliban, suggesting Riyadh cannot use the Afghan jihadist movement as a lever against Iran.
For its part, a tactical alignment with the Iranians gives the Taliban leverage in talks with the United States. But dealings with Iran represent more than just a bargaining chip for the Taliban in regard to its talks with Washington. The Afghan jihadist movement knows it will have to deal with the Islamic republic long after NATO draws down its forces from their country by the end of 2014, and Tehran has deep ties with the Taliban's main traditional enemy, the Tajik minority-led Northern Alliance.
Another key factor motivating the Taliban to enhance its relations with Iran is the fact that it no longer enjoys the support of Pakistan. Islamabad is fighting its own Taliban insurgency, and does not see having the Taliban gaining a disproportionate amount of influence in post-NATO Afghanistan as being in its national interest -- a marked change.
Courtesy : Stratfor (www.stratfor.com)