Iran, the Taliban and Russia By Douglas Farah

Iran, the Taliban and Russia
By Douglas Farah
http://counterterrorismblog.org/

The Daily Telegraph of London brings news that Iranian weapons are still flowing to the Taliban, despite the Obama administration's efforts to forge a fragile alliance with the radical Shiite government on cutting off this lethal supply line.

As the story notes, most of the weapons are brand new, and fairly sophisticated, inflicting serious damage on U.S. and NATO forces.

Sources said Tehran was still "hedging its bets", with elements within the country believed to be supporting Afghan insurgents.The Shia-Muslim dominated country has no wish to see extremist Sunni groups like the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan but it remains deeply suspicious of the US presence.

International forces believe elements within the Iranian regime are either behind the smuggling or at least doing little to stop it. The disclosure that weapons are still freely flowing across the border follows Afghan army claims that Iranian weapons were recovered from a notorious Taliban and drug trafficker haven in Helmand province.

One needs to step back and see where the Iranian weapons come from, and why the suppliers to Iran don't seem to care where the weapons end up. The answer is that Russia, who we still like to pretend is an ally in combating radical Islam, is the main supplier, and Russia has shown no qualms in arming radical groups (often via Iran).

The clearest example of the Russian-Iranian pipeline came in the 2006 conflict between Hezbollah and Israel, where the pipeline provided the Shiite militants with armor-piercing rockets and other armament that the Israeli forces clearly were not expecting. Victor Bout (still held in jail in Bangkok, awaiting supposedly the final hearing on his extradition in August) helped move those weapons.

Now the same pipeline is helping the Taliban, although the two have many differences. This continues the Iranian tradition of playing all sides that it believes could be convenient, often with Russian complicity and support. Following the 2001 coalition attack on Afghanistan, several senior members of al Qaeda, including Osama bin Laden's son and at least one of his wives, along with the families of other senior al Qaeda leaders, transited Iran on their way to safety. Other senior AQ leaders were placed under some sort of domestic detention, and most have been allowed to leave Iran and continue their jihad against the West. It has no qualms about seeing its weapons go to radical Islamist groups, no matter the persuasion, to hurt the West.

Russia, with its desire to increase its arms sales to bolster the economy and stature as a world power, is selling Iran billions of dollars worth of weapons, and, in exchange, Iran has opened the doors for Russia in Latin America, particularly Venezuela. (Venezuela has declared publicly some $4.5 billion in weapons purchases from Russia in the past 4 years, and that does not account for the huge amount of off the books purchases that have been made as well.) There are apparently few controls placed on who Iran passes the weapons on to.

The Obama administration may be right in wanting to hit the reset button with Russia and begin anew in its relationship with a very important country that is occasionally our ally. But the reset button should not erase or obscure the fact that Russia is what it is-a constant and steady supplier of weapons and technology to nations who have expressed the desire to attack the United States and its allies. It does not prize the rule of law (the government is in many ways an organized criminal syndicate) and it does not value a relationship of trust with the United States or others.

Otherwise, why would Russian government and organized crime spend billions hacking into every major government and non-government computer system in a far more sophisticated spying operation than they ever mustered during the Cold War?

One can reset to reality. The Bush administration, with its infatuation and blind belief in the goodness and democratic intentions of Putin, was clearly not reality based. I hope the Obama reset is not in the same mold.

NOTE: My personal website is under a viral attack, so I won't link to it here. I will link again when we get that cleaned up.
June 9, 2009 09:23 AM Link