US, Iran seek to stop Afghan narco-traffic By Kaveh L Afrasiabi
United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has urged Iran to attend a
"big tent" conference on Afghanistan at the end of the month. And with
characteristic candor, she has cited Tehran's problems with the Afghan drugs
smuggled into Iran as one of several reasons why the Iranians should
participate in the United Nations-sponsored event.
The ministerial-level conference is likely to take place in the Netherlands and
involve the countries and organizations with stakes in Afghanistan's future.
"If we move forward with such a meeting, it is expected that Iran will be
invited as a neighbor of Afghanistan," Clinton said last week. "It is a way of
the stakeholders and interested parties together."
The narrow focus on select dimensions of the Afghanistan crisis and the hope to
enlist Iran's cooperation mark a smart move by the administration of President
Barack Obama in its new (yet to be fully determined) Afghanistan policy.
Preliminary signs from Iran indicate that it is inching toward accepting the
invitation, assuming that it has been officially relayed, or will be shortly.
This week's trip to Tehran by Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai, to attend the
annual summit of the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO), will give Tehran
and Kabul a unique opportunity to discuss the UN conference's modalities and
will likely help to melt any Iranian hesitation to participate.
In that case, the pertinent question will be: what can possibly be achieved as
a result of a huge multilateral meeting and the potential bilateral or
trilateral talks on the sidelines? In other words, what exactly are the US's
expectations and, for that matter, those of Iran, with respect to what Obama
has referred to as the "stabilization of the deteriorating situation in
On the symbolic level, the conference would be important in terms of giving
some concrete form to Obama's abstract calls for engaging Iran, and this alone
could positively impact the broader issues that stand between the US and Iran.
The main purpose of the conference, however, is to explore a regional approach
to Afghanistan's worsening woes, and Clinton's mere reference to Iran and
Pakistan as "regional and strategic countries" is a step in the new direction
of looking at Iran as a source of a solution, rather than merely as a country
that causes problems. This is a change from the George W Bush administration,
which never stopped looking at Iran through the lenses of suspicion and
Given the dire situation in Afghanistan as a result of misguided and
half-hearted security policies, the option of avoiding Iran, which has
considerable clout both in Afghanistan as well as in parts of adjacent Central
Asia, is no longer available to the White House
This is particularly the case as Moscow has managed to convince Kyrgyzstan to
shut down the US military base in that country, which serves as a key node for
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) supplies to Afghanistan. Given
Moscow's willingness to allow non-lethal supplies to pass through its territory
and its sphere of influence to Afghanistan, the US and NATO are desperately
seeking alternative routes now that the roads from Pakistan, where the bulk of
supplies pass through, have been turned increasingly deadly by the resurgent
Iran may at some point consider allowing a transit corridor for NATO supplies,
but that does not seem likely at the moment. For one thing, this would not sit
well with Russia, Iran's sole nuclear partner that is under pressure by the US
and the European Union not to make operational the much-delayed power plant in
Bushehr and not to sell the sophisticated S-300 missile system to Iran.
A US-Russia summit is due in April, and should it appear that Obama and
President Dmitry Medvedev are contemplating a quid pro quo on Iran, then Tehran
may react by setting aside its reservations about NATO and cooperate with the
Western alliance on Afghanistan.
At this weekend's meeting between Clinton and her Russian counterpart, Sergei
Lavrov, the latter seemed intent on withstanding US bullying to scrap the
missile sale to Iran, yet few people in Iran believe this is the end of the
As a result, any substantive breakthrough in Iran-NATO cooperation on
Afghanistan hinges to some extent on the nature of US-Russia deals on Iran,
which is why the coming conference has the potential to drive an untimely wedge
between Moscow and Tehran (from the point of view of Tehran).
At the same time, given the enormity of the Afghanistan crisis, propelled by
the Taliban resurgence, an exponential increase in drug smuggling, Kabul's
inefficiency and corruption, etc, there is a desperate need to prioritize
Afghanistan's stability and thus stem the tide of political extremism and
One option would be cooperation between NATO and the Shanghai Cooperation
Organization (SCO), which has been conducting anti-drug operations since 2003,
in tandem with other regional organizations. The SCO, which comprises China,
Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, has added a Drug
Control Coordination Unit to its welter of regional activities.
Given Iran's membership in ECO and its (enhanced) observer status at SCO, such
a method of cooperating with the US and its Western allies on the narcotics
traffic from Afghanistan has the advantage of putting to rest any anxiety on
Moscow's part about any US intention to "divide and conquer"'.
Afghanistan is the source of over 90% of the illicit opium in the world,
according to the International Narcotics Control Board. According to the
board's 2008 report, Afghanistan produces over 7,000 tons of opium. Mixed with
certain chemicals, opium is used to manufacture heroin.
A successful anti-narcotics campaign would cripple Afghanistan's narco-economy
that relies heavily on illicit revenue and which benefits the Taliban and their
The trick is how to push forward counter-insurgency and anti-narcotics
campaigns simultaneously, as this would require a broad, multi-pronged strategy
involving determined efforts by the Kabul government, neighboring states and
The gap would have to be narrowed between development assistance programs and
anti-narcotics plans, whereby thousands of farmers presently cultivating opium
poppy or cannabis would not be risking their livelihoods by switching to, among
other things, wheat and cotton.
A recent UN report on Afghanistan attributes a sharp 19% decline in opium
production in 2008 to a combination of declining opium prices, a food crisis,
bad weather, as well as more effective government interdiction and eradication
Yet, the same report says that about 14 provinces in Afghanistan have no
eradication program at all and that last year, compared with the target goal of
eradicating 50,000 hectares of land from poppy production, only 5,480 hectares
were eradicated, partly as a result of a lack of funding and proper equipment.
In the southern province of Helmand alone, which is a Taliban stronghold and
where two-thirds of all the drug trade is located, the area under poppy
cultivation has tripled since 2006. The Taliban have reversed their pre-2001
antipathy to illicit drugs and now earn tens of millions of dollars by imposing
hefty surcharges on the drug traffic.
Another report, by a Kabul-based research group, blames the government's
failure to contain the menace of drug smuggling on "corrupt officials" who
"allow drug traffickers to continue to operate with impunity, while officials
attempting to address the drug problem are often subject to harassment, death
threats or violence". Drug-related corruption is widespread and some members of
the Afghan army have been arrested on drug charges.
This year promises to be just as bad, if not worse, in terms of the the drug
traffic, bringing with it a wide range of social ills, and in Iran in
particular. It is estimated that about 30% of the drugs funneling through Iran
are for the country's internal market. This is despite the same UN report cited
above stating categorically that "more opium is seized in Iran than any other
country in the world".
Tehran's government estimates that 2,500 tons of opium enter the country from
Afghanistan each year, 700 tons of which is destined for abuse in Iran, and
that on average the Iranian police seize 500 tons every year.
Iran's counter-narcotics efforts
As the US prepares to enter into a meaningful dialogue with Tehran over
Afghanistan issues, it is important for Washington policy-makers to understand
the wealth of efforts and energy that Iran has been putting in its
counter-narcotics campaign, unilaterally and otherwise.
Iran has tough anti-narcotics laws that have resulted in the internment of some
70,000 drug traffickers. Tehran has deployed several thousand troops to protect
the 1,600-kilometer porous borders with both Afghanistan and Pakistan, another
major entry point of drugs into Iran, and hundreds of drug-enforcement agents
die each year in battles with highly armed smugglers. Also, adding to the
exorbitant costs is the huge amount that Iran has allocated to tackle rampant
drug abuse afflicting the country's youth.
Iran has not received much of a helping hand from the world community in this
regard and the "big tent" conference is an opportunity for the Europeans in
particular to offer tangible assistance. This they could do in such areas as
Iran's drug-abuse program, by building better border posts and in placing
obstacles along the Afghan and Pakistan borders.
The European Union recently signed a memorandum of agreement with the ECO,
providing token assistance to the ECO's regional anti-drug efforts. This is a
venue US policy-makers could consider for making a major contribution, since
the absence of diplomatic relations between Tehran and Washington and the US
sanctions on Iran prevent a direct contribution to Iran on the anti-drug front.
Mindful of the close connection between Afghanistan's resurgent insurgency and
the substantial increase in the illicit drug trade, Iranian officials recently
took part in a trilateral initiative with Afghanistan and Pakistan. The three
countries upgraded intelligence-sharing and the exchange of information, and
vowed to counter the illicit trade in precursor chemicals. This is another area
in which a lot more substantive effort can be launched now that the US does not
subscribe to the Bush administration's efforts to keep Kabul at a safe distance
On the multilateral front, other than the ECO, Iran has participated in a
number of forums, including the Caspian Sea Initiative led by Turkmenistan that
aims at capacity building in regional anti-drug efforts, and the group that
comprises the Central Asian states plus Russia, the US and Iran.
The problem with the US's new Iran overture is, as always, one of consistency:
no sooner had Clinton made her invitation to Iran when the top American
commander in Afghanistan, General David McKiernan, repeated allegations of
Iran's support for the Taliban, a charge flatly denied by Tehran.
As a result, Iran is not altogether satisfied that Washington's invitation is
completely genuine and it has sent the message that "more positive signals" are
needed. Mckiernan's negative comments were certainly not helpful.
As the main victim of the Afghan drug trade that fuels the anti-Iran Taliban,
Iran is poised to enter into a productive dialogue with the US and its NATO
partners on how to tackle this problem. Simply micro-focusing on the multiple
dimensions of the narcotics trade is the right approach at the moment, for the
US, Iran and the embattled government in Kabul.
Kaveh L Afrasiabi, PhD, is the author of After Khomeini: New
Directions in Iran's Foreign Policy (Westview Press) . For his Wikipedia entry,
click here. His
Reading In Iran Foreign Policy After September 11 (BookSurge Publishing
, October 23, 2008) is now available.