Centcom commander General David Petraeus has accused the Shia government of Iran of providing aid to the Afghan Taliban across the border. It is an incredible accusation given the well-known animosity between the Shi'ite theocratic-dictators of Iran's government and the Sunni theocratic pan-Pashtuns of the Taliban- a fact which the general himself noted.
"In Afghanistan Iran provides a modest level of equipment, explosives and perhaps some funding to the Taliban in western Afghanistan," Petreaus told ABC News.
"Our sense is, frankly, that they don't want the Taliban to succeed. They don't want an extremist Sunni regime running their eastern neighbor. But they don't want us to succeed too easily either," the general said.
Of course, this is not the first time people have suspected Iran of aiding elements of the Taliban across their border in western Afghanistan.
It is important to note that General Petraeus was being more understanding than he was rattling any sabers.
"It is conceivable they would want the same outcome as we would, an Afghanistan that remains whole, that is not run by the Taliban, and does not give sanctuary again to Al Qaeda."
In the early days of the Afghan invasion Iran and the U.S. cooperated in replacing the Taliban government with what was seen as a shared interest in stabilizing Iran's eastern neighbor.
Petraeus says such cooperation today is "conceivable," but that Iran "has a hard time getting past the fact that we're part of the effort."
Some would of course immediately scoff at this notion that the "Islamic" "Republic" of Iran would actually aid the Taliban for the sake of harming our interests in the region. It'd be about as hard-to-believe as.. oh, I don't know, the Iran-Contra affair? Or Pakistan's playing of footsie with elements of the Afghan Taliban?
I noted back in October a CBS News report detailing some of the ways in which it appears the Iranian government is aiding some elements of the Taliban in western Afghanistan. General Petraeus' statements generally agrees with the argument in the CBS article;
1 That there is some level of aid in the form of equipment, possibly also funding and some limited-training.
2 The growing presence of explosively-formed penetrators(EFPs), an Iranian road-side bomb specialty.
What do you all think?