Brian M Downing
Sectarian antagonisms have existed in the Islamic world for centuries. They became more prominent with the Iranian Revolution (1979) and worsened when the US defeated a Sunni state in Iraq and opened the way for Shia rule. Since then, two international coalitions have formed: Shia Iran, Syria, and Hisbollah, which are backed by Russia; and Saudi Arabia along with many Sunni states, which are backed by Israel and the US, and increasingly by Britain and France.
Numbers greatly favor the Sunnis. Nonetheless, Iran is looking for opportunities to strike back. Neither Syria nor Yemen can look promising. Whatever assets Iran puts forward there can be readily countered. Indeed, the two theaters seem better suited to entrapping Iran in costly, protracted, and fruitless efforts.
Afghanistan might prove a more rewarding theater. American troops have been ensnarled there for almost seventeen years. Iran can make the conflict more difficult than it already is. But that will entail risks.
Afghanistan after 2001
The US and Iran have had a convoluted relationship in Afghanistan. They both supported mujahideen forces against the Soviet Union until it withdrew in 1989. Shortly after the 9/11 attacks, when US special forces made contact with Northern Alliance forces, they learned that Iranian counterparts had been there for years. Iranians provided intelligence and offered to help downed American pilots.
The opportunity for rapprochement fell away as the Bush administration called for regime change in Iran and prepared to attack its nuclear sites. Iran responded by arming Shia militias in Iraq. Curiously, Shia attacks subsided the same time American threats did.
Iran also provided arms to the Taliban and trained some of them at an IRGC base in Zahedan. The programs were not large; Iran never wanted the Taliban to succeed. It just wanted the US to know that it could cause trouble should relations worsen elsewhere.
Afghanistan now
Iran may opt to increase support to the Taliban. It’s already done so in conjunction with Russia over the last two years, and facing fiercer antagonism from the US and costly wars in Syria and Yemen, it may seek revenge to the east. The Taliban announced their spring offensive recently and made attacks on US troops a priority. Music to Tehran’s ears.
The IRGC can up the flow of basic arms to the Taliban and perhaps also provide them with EFPs, the anti-tank weapons given to Shia militias in Iraq. They would be useful against convoys and light-armor vehicles. Russia will help. Manpads could also find their way to the Taliban, though Tehran may be wary of them falling into the wrong hands (as do many backers of Syrian rebels).
Iran has long been recruiting men from Afghanistan’s Shia population, the Hazaras, and sending them into Syria. The Hazaras are unlikely to fight Americans or the ANA, but Iranian recruitment detracts from the ANA’s manpower pool and increases the need for western troops.
Iran could use its considerable influence with northern people, especially the Tajiks and Uzbeks, to distance themselves from Washington and Kabul and recognize Iran and its allies in Russia and China as central to their country’s future.
Swathes of western Afghanistan may become economically and politically more integrated with Tehran than Kabul. This would give Iran an important glacis against Sunni extremism to its east. American state-building efforts will be even more forbidding.
Risks
Iran wants to help the Taliban enough to hurt the US but not enough to win the war. The insurgents are, in the eyes of Tehran, a rabid Sunni militant band that massacred Iranian diplomats in Mazar-e-Sharif twenty years ago and has repeatedly done the same to Hazaras in central Afghanistan. Tehran is also mindful that Pakistani generals and mullahs are behind the Taliban, and behind them are disbursements from Saudi princes.
Iran could also invite strong retaliation. The US would have cause to strike the IRGC base at Zahedan with cruise missiles or smart bombs. Aid could flow in to Baloch fighters in southeastern Iran, who have already formed a low-level insurgency that has struck IRGC targets.
Iran’s greatest concern might be success. It could inflict such costs on the US that it one day gives up on Afghanistan, as it did thirty years ago. An American exit would present serious problems for Iran. It would share a long border with a chaotic land where the Taliban, al Qaeda, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, and ISIL will operate freely and expand across the porous frontiers and poorly governed lands of what they call Khorasan.
Copyright 2018 Brian M Downing
Brian M Downing is a national security analyst who has written for outlets across the political spectrum. He studied at Georgetown University and the University of Chicago, and did post-graduate work at Harvard’s Center for International Affairs. Thanks to Susan Ganosellis.