When General Petraeus met President Karzai yesterday it wasn’t simply to tell him that Iran was giving the Taleban weapons. He had to convince the President that what he said was true. General Petraeus arrived armed with photographs and evidence which Western officials insist is proof that the rockets originated in Iran. The President’s office said it would start its own investigation.
Tehran was a staunch enemy of the Taleban when the insurgents were in power. The Taleban are hardline Sunnis supported by Pakistan and are therefore natural enemies of Tehran’s Shia regime.
Although Iran was uncomfortable with the vast US bases close to its border in Afghanistan, the Iranian focus was in Iraq, where Tehran supplied explosive devices, rockets and training to Shia insurgents who wreaked havoc on US forces.
Meanwhile, they provided limited shipments of rifles, bullets and parts for IEDs to Afghanistan. But so long as the Taleban did not get ground-to-air missiles — like those the CIA supplied to the Mujahideen in the late 1980s for shooting down Russian helicopters — there seems to have been a tolerance of Iran’s limited meddling in Afghanistan. But as talk of a US withdrawal gains pace, so too has the interest of Afghanistan’s neighbours.
Iran has been buying allies in Kabul with bags of cash to the President’s chief of staff but it is also making friends in Helmand with its 122mm rockets. Iran wants a stake in the future of Afghanistan and it seems America and Britain are determined to stop it. Yet President Karzai knows Iran will be there long after the West have left. It remains to be seen who he will believe.