"...The prospect of some sort of Taliban rehabilitation received a much frostier reception in Tehran. Iran’s Foreign Minister Manuchehr Mottaki urged the U.S. against talks, saying that the Taliban’s extremism could not be confined to the Middle East and West Asia........Iran’s ambassador to the UN said that negotiations would make Afghanistan even less stable. The chairman of Iran’s parliamentary foreign policy and national security committee said the talks would spread terrorism.........Iran welcomed and assisted the Taliban’s downfall in 2001. Writing in the Boston Globe in late October, Lawrence Korb, Ronald Reagan’s former assistant defense secretary, noted that Iran helped U.S. forces to depose the Taliban regime and then pledged $560 million in reconstruction aid to Karzai’s government, Iran’s impact on the Taliban’s drugs revenue is one of the untold stories of the war on terror. Even the U.S. has praised Iran’s efforts against narcotics........Iran sees a Saudi hand in Jundallah, another Sunni group connected to the Taliban and its opium revenue..."
Friday, November 7, 2008
The Iran-Saudi Cold War
In Diplomatic Courier, here, via WPR
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