Iran Arming the Taliban

If you’ve been reading here awhile you will have seen articles speculating that Iran is playing a hand in both Pakistan and in Afghanistan. Today a US Envoy openly accused elements within Iran of supplying and training the Taliban:

A senior U.S. diplomat accused Iran on Tuesday of transferring weapons to Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan—the most direct comments yet on the issue by a ranking American official.

Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns, speaking to reporters in Paris, said Iran was funding insurrections across the Middle East—and “Iran is now even transferring arms to the Taliban in Afghanistan.”

Iran’s possible role in aiding insurgents in Iraq has long been hotly debated, and last month some Western and Persian Gulf governments charged that the Islamic government in Tehran is secretly bolstering Taliban fighters.

In an interview with The Associated Press on Monday, U.S. Army Gen. Dan McNeill said Taliban fighters are showing signs of better training, using combat techniques comparable to “an advanced Western military” in ambushes of U.S. Special Forces soldiers.

“In Afghanistan it is clear that the Taliban is receiving support, including arms from … elements of the Iranian regime,” British Prime Minister Tony Blair wrote in the May 31 edition of the Economist. Story Link

It’s not speculation that you can call me brilliant for making, after all if we knew last July that the Qods brigade was manufacturing IEDs and EFPs for the front in Iraq, why wouldn’t they be doing so in Afghanistan? Islamic states survive by feeding on their neighbor’s woes.  Most Islamic states sponsor insurgent and agit-prop groups in most neighboring states, and this has gone on forever. It’s nothing new, it’s just the ancient cold power struggle of tyrants in the Islamic world. If the tyrants keep their problems externalized, it helps keep the pressure off of them.