NATO Supply To Afghan Needs Iran

NATO Supply To Afghan Needs Iran

(NSI News Source Info) February 18, 2009: The Taliban has staged repeated attacks on Afghanistan’s perilous Khyber Pass against trucks loaded with NATO supplies. The international security forces, including Germany’s Bundeswehr, are scrambling to find safer routes — and might even consider one through Iran. The best road networks among all neighboring countries are to be found in Iran, a country neighboring Afghanistan that has recently had significant issues with the West, though for other reasons. These problems with Iran have made this alternative taboo.

But NATO is desperate to find a solution and, according to diplomatic sources in Pakistan, it is also negotiating with Tehran “at a lower level.” The rapprochement already began under former President George W. Bush, who had accused the mullah-controlled regime of being in league with the Taliban.

But now that Obama is in office, ironically enough, there is a better chance that Iran could end up helping the United States — also known as the “Great Satan” — and its allies. During his first state visit to Kabul in August 2007, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad promised Afghan President Hamid Karzai his full support in the struggle for stability. “The best friend of Iran,” Ahmadinejad insisted, “is a country that is economically powerful and developed.” So far, Iran has paid Afghanistan more than $1 billion (€770 million) in development aid. A usable long-distance road already exists in Afghanistan. India, one of the biggest investors in Karzai’s country, has built a road between the city of Zaranj on the Iranian border and Delaram, which lies about 200 kilometers (125 miles) to the northeast in Afghanistan. The road could link the Iranian port of Chabahar with Afghanistan’s turbulent south.