Tehran's Layer Of Alliances

Julian Borger,
Diplomatic Editor
Saturday February 10, 2007
The Guardian

When Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, vowed this week to hit back at American interests around the world if Iran was attacked, it was no empty threat.

More than at any time in the life of the Islamic republic, Iran is positioned to inflict significant pain on the US and its allies in many places at the same time.

US stumbling in the Middle East has strengthened and emboldened Iran. On top of an array of patron-client relationships with powerful Shia groups, like Hizbullah in Lebanon, the Badr brigades and the Mahdi army in Iraq, Tehran has built a new layer of alliances with some more surprising partners among the Sunni jihadists. It has forged a relationship with Hamas in Gaza, and even appears to have developed links with the Taliban.

...western intelligence sources believe official contacts have been made between the erstwhile enemies. Iranian intelligence is thought to be providing some money and training to the Taliban and giving safe passage for jihadists travelling from the Iraqi to the Afghan front.

Seth Jones, a terrorism expert at the Rand Corporation thinktank, who has just returned from Afghanistan, said:

"There are indications the Iranians have opened contacts with insurgent groups, including the Quetta Shura (the Taliban command council for southern Afghanistan)".

He said there was so far no evidence Iran had supplied what the Taliban need most, modern surface-to-air missiles. He also stressed that Iranian backing for the Taliban was barely significant compared to the support it enjoyed in Pakistan, while Tehran enjoyed strong relations with the Karzai government in Kabul.

"What Iran in my view is doing is pursuing a hedging strategy," he said. "The Iranian government would prefer to keep a close relationship with the Afghan government, but also wants to protect itself from a strike from the US or Israel."

Iran could make life more difficult for the US, Britain and their allies in southern Afghanistan.

"If the Taliban got surface-to-air missiles, it would really change things in Afghanistan."

What was unfolding in Afghanistan was part of a broader contest, in which both sides were seeking a more lethal grip on their opponent as insurance against attack.

"There is a struggle for influence between US and Iran right across south-west Asia, in which main theatres of operation are Lebanon, Afghanistan and Iraq," said Afshin Molavi, an Iranian specialist at the International Crisis Group (ICG).

In that struggle, Iran national interests rise above sectarian or ideological affiliation.

Meanwhile, the long-standing relationship with Hizbullah offers Iran the potential to threaten US interests much further afield. Tehran helped set up the Shia militia after the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, and it has since developed a global presence stretching as far as Lebanese communities in Latin America. In the event of an attack on Iran, it could offer Tehran a potent network for reprisals.

But Iran's capacity to hit back is limited to the readiness of its clients and partners to take on the US. In recent years, Hizbullah has opted to focus on its role in Lebanon and its conflict with Israel.

"The Mahdi army and Moqtada al-Sadr are willing to take money from Iranians, but he is an Iraqi nationalist with no pro-Iranian proclivities," said Joost Hiltermann, a Jordan-based analyst for the ICG.

Furthermore, Tehran must calibrate any retaliation to avoid bringing the region down on its head. It may support the Taliban, but does not want to see the Sunni extremist movement back in power on its eastern border.