Iran is buying political influence in Afghanistan

A normal neighbourly relationship does not involve an ambassador passing cash to a president's chief of staff

Massoumeh Torfeh
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 26 October 2010

"It must have been embarrassing for President Karzai of Afghanistan to have to admit in front of a fellow president, Emomali Rahmon of Tajikistan – that he receives "bags of money" in donations from Iran. "This is a relationship between neighbours," he said, making it sound as though it is customary for neighbours to walk around carrying bags of handouts.
A few aspects are intriguing....

However, transparency should surely be for the benefit of the people of Afghanistan and the funds thus received should be declared and registered at the Afghan treasury. Yet that was not what the president said....

...The Iranian embassy in Kabul denied this.....

We have also seen over the past two weeks how Iran has influenced the formation of a government in Iraq through persuading its allies, the Sadrists, to form a coalition with Nouri al-Maliki, the prime minister.

In its efforts to compete with the US, Iran uses state and non-state actors as proxies for manipulating a range of political, economic, and military outcomes to gain influence.

In Afghanistan the aim is political influence through the Shia, Hazara and Tajik population, sometimes referred to as the Persian-speaking population who account for more than 58% of the country's inhabitants.....

Parliamentary elections held in Afghanistan in September were marred by fraud and the results may not be known for a while. However, among more than 100 Hazara and Shia candidates who took part, 25-30 are expected to win seats in the 249-seat lower house of parliament. Journalist Vahid Mojdeh says most of these candidates "are believed to be supported by Iran". He says: "Shias have never before had so much power as they do now."

The Tajik success is even more significant.....

Whatever the excuses, and whoever enters into these backhand methods of buying political support, they are all guilty of deceiving the public. President Karzai's explanation makes a mockery of transparency, and Iran's method of passing bags of money between its ambassador and the president's chief of staff flouts all diplomatic norms."