Thirty-odd ministers, seven special envoys, hundreds of hangers-on and one head of state – the meeting in The Hague called by the Obama administration to rally international support for its new Afghan strategy promised to be, at best, diplomatic candyfloss – sweet and tasty while eaten, yet quickly forgotten thereafter. Not much different than the countless other international conferences -– from Tokyo, Berlin and Paris –- that have taken place since the 2001 ouster of the Taliban.
But by playing stage to the first high-level meeting between US and Iranian representatives to have taken place in almost a decade, the conference may have taken on new importance. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called the Iranian intervention earlier in the day “promising” while the Iranian delegate, Mohammed Mehid Akhundzadeh, went off to meet Richard Holbrooke, Washington’s chief Afghan diplomat.
This is undoubtedly good for US-Iranian relations. If these tentative moves begin a rapprochement – and perhaps an eventual resolution of the nuclear question — then all the better. But the real impact on the conference’s topic –- Afghanistan -– has been overstated. It is Pakistan and Indian who hold the keys to Afghanistan’s stability.
Though Iran has probably armed parts of the Taliban insurgency and overseen an Afghan policy that can best be described as “managed chaos”, Tehran has no interested in seeing the Karzai government toppled. A return to power by the Taliban would likely hurt Iran’s Shia brethren across the border, the Hazaras, while reigniting the conflicts that used to exist between Tehran and Kabul. The Islamic Republic has therefore been circumspect in how much support it has provided to the Taliban. Compared to the support provided by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards to Shia militias in Iraq, the Taliban have received only rudimentary support.
Tehran’s ability to affect matter for the better inside Afghanistan is also limited. Mrs. Clinton talked about shared US-Iranian concerns over the ballooning opium trade. But cooperation has taken place at a working-level for years. Despite conducting a counter-narcotics war on the Iranian side of the border –- which has cost hundreds of Iranian police officers’ lives –- Tehran has not been able to stem the drug trade. It is hard to see what greater US-Iranian cooperation can do to change the underlying economic rationale.
The truth is that while cooperation with Iran is useful, it is Afghanistan’s other neighbour, Pakistan, which really needs to be drawn into the process. As I argue in a new brief published by the European Council on Foreign Relations, success in Afghanistan requires engagement in the conflicts between India and Pakistan and between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Pakistan continues to provide a sanctuary for the Taliban and al-Qaeda, and some insurgent groups are still believed to be backed by Pakistani intelligence. Kashmir remains a recruiting sergeant for Pakistani militants. Until now, the US seems to have looked the other way when confronted by evidence of Pakistani support for the Quetta Shura, run by the Taliban’s Mulah Omar, for fear of jeopardising cooperation on the “nuclear file”. In its effort to befriend India, the US has shied away from raising the Kashmir issue.
But if the Obama administration wants its “AfPak” strategy to work this will need to change. Getting Iran on board US policy is good and well worth a conference. But getting Pakistan and India engaged will be even more important. Expect another conference to be held before long.
