An American Marine patrols the surroundings of the village of Garmsir in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, April 28

Iran denounced the recently signed Strategic Partnership Agreement between Afghanistan and the United States. It sees the basing of American forces in the country and across the Persian Gulf as a security threat and has even reached out to the Sunni Taliban to balance this perceived threat.

The Iranians have long voiced discomfort with the prospect of a long term American presence on its eastern border. They have attempted to use their clout within the political system of Afghanistan and the means of bribery to influence Afghan parliamentarians to vote against any security pact with the United States.

The American forces in Afghanistan, far from being a solution to the problems of the region, are seen by Tehran as likely to intensify the regional insecurity and instability. Yet Iran’s own threat perception is in part fueling insecurity in Afghanistan and instability throughout the region.

The pact appears to have already strained relations between Afghanistan and Iran with Afghan diplomats in Tehran claiming that they are being intimidated and their movements have been severely curtailed. This may be a sign of worse things to come in the future.

Iran believes that the presence of American military bases and troops and access to military facilities in several other countries in the region such as Bahrain, Kuwait, Turkey and Qatar, is part of a deliberate strategy of encircling and containing Iran. Tehran fears that such a strategic position would enable the United States to monitor its nuclear program and launch attacks against it.

The capture of an American unmanned drone aircraft in December of last year, which was used by the United States to look for tunnels, underground facilities and other places where Iran could be producing centrifuge parts or enrichment facilities, confirm Iranian suspicions.

It has also been alleged that the United States are using their bases in Afghanistan to extend covert support to Sunni and Balochi insurgents, such as the Jundullah group, in Iran’s southeastern most Sistan and Baluchestan Province.

It is no surprise then that the Strategic Partnership Agreement is bound to enhance Iranian anxieties about the American troops in its neighbourhood, even if the pact explicitly states that America cannot use Afghanistan to launch attacks on a third country.

The mere presence of the United States in Afghanistan will pose an obstacle to the expansion of Iran’s influence in the country, particularly in its traditional sphere of influence—western Afghanistan, where Iran has spent millions of dollars over the past decade.

Iran has resorted to several means to undermine the American mission in Afghanistan, many of which are far from being positive in nature.

Iran has been accused of sending shiploads of text books into western Afghanistan with the aim of promoting the Shī’ah culture, the contents of which have been found offensive by the Sunni population. Such attempts at fueling sectarian tensions in Afghanistan make the task of managing the country much tougher for the Americans.

Similarly, it has been alleged that Iran exerts its influence over Afghanistan’s education curriculum through institutions like the Khatam-al Nabyeen Islamic University in Kabul, with the aim of promoting Iranian culture, win over the Afghan Shī’ah community and spread anti-Americanism.

Iran has also, in the past, cut off its fuel supplies to Afghanistan, which caused massive outcry in Kabul, as it believed that petrol and diesel, which was meant to be used by Afghans, was siphoned off to NATO.

However, the most intriguing development has been Iran’s measured support of the Taliban. The foreign forces in Afghanistan have often intercepted weapons, rockets and missiles that originated in Iran and were similar to the ones that were used to undermine the international counterinsurgency efforts in Iraq. There have also been suspicions of Taliban fighters being trained in Iran.

The alliance with the Taliban is one of necessity as the group posed a significant security and ideological threat to Iran when it was in power in the 1990s. The two nearly went to war in 1998 following
the massacre of Iranian diplomats in Mazār-e Sharīf in northern Afghanistan. Even today, Iran would not favor a government in Kabul that is led or dominated by the Taliban.

The support for the Taliban was envisioned as a short term measure to make the Americans bleed and keep them preoccupied in Afghanistan, thereby diverting their attention from Iran.

However, as the United States look set to stay on in Afghanistan beyond 2014, albeit in reduced numbers, Iran is likely to maintain its support for the Taliban and indulge in other covert destabilizing activities, thereby prolonging the insurgency and the instability in the country.

Pakistani men unload supplies delivered by a United States Army Chinook helicopter in Matlatan, Pakistan on September 28, 2010 (Sergeant Jason Bushong)

Western forces looking to exit Afghanistan over the next two years are playing a game of roulette, looking for the luckiest and cheapest way out of the warzone. Central Asian countries are scrambling to be the most attractive bet. Difficult and still closed, the road through Pakistan remains the preferred route.

Afghanistan’s neighbors stand to make huge profits as NATO countries move to withdraw their troops and equipment. Manas Air Base in Kyrgyzstan will remain under American control until the war is over but the base cannot handle all of the equipment which NATO forces must remove from the region. Land routes are numerous but difficult for a variety of reasons and Central Asia is poised to cash in on the scramble to depart.

Additionally, Central Asian states are more submissive to Russia than America. Russia and the United States have recently begun to negotiate a ”retrograde transit” agreement to use the Northern Distribution Network but the Kremlin may well seek to exploit the deal in order to achieve its aims elsewhere.

There are numerous options for getting into and alternatively out of Afghanistan but none are perfect bets.

The Pakistan route is the easiest and the cheapest but unreliable. In late November 2011, Pakistan closed the border to NATO traffic in protest after an American air strike killed nearly 30 Pakistani soldiers by accident. The border is still closed and Pakistan obstinate about reopening it without an American apology.

The Northern Distribution Network was developed by the Americans as an alternative to the Pakistan route but there are signs that its gatekeeper Uzbekistan will seek to raise transit fees. While Uzbekistan has by far the best road and railroad network among Afghanistan’s neighbors, its price gouging will prompt NATO powers to seek additional alternate routes.

The trouble is that difficult and pernicious as Pakistan and Uzbekistan can be, alternative land routes through Tajikistan and Turkmenistan are even more troublesome. Bad roads and bad winters are only where the problems begin.

There is discussion of selling some equipment to the Central Asian republics and thus removing the need to transport such equipment out of the region on NATO’s dime. In February, British armed forces minister Nick Harvey suggested trading military equipment for favorable transit fees. He alluded to the unspecified equipment as being potentially useful in Central Asia’s battle with narcotics and terrorism.

The United States have been more circumspect about leaving military equipment in the hands of Central Asian autocrats. Robert Blake, the American assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian affairs said that arms transfers to countries along the Northern Distribution Network would be subject to the same restrictions that apply to regular arms transfers. Thus far, the Americans have been unwilling to sell any weapons to Uzbekistan, which has a less than pristine human rights record.

The bottom line is that Pakistan holds the lucky numbers. The average shipping cost of a container, as reported by Radio Free Europe, from Afghanistan to Karachi is $7,200. By northern routes shipping the same container would cost $17,500. When Pakistan decides to reopen the road to NATO convoys, it is likely to be at a higher price but still able to undercut the Central Asian route.

Money, power and politics all play a part in this game of supply route roulette. Money is on Pakistan and it is doubtful that by 2014 NATO powers will be interested in taking the longer, more expensive road through authoritarian Central Asia and into Russia’s arms. Islamabad will eventually reopen the border and happily usher the West out of its backyard.

President Barack Obama of the United States and Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan meet in Kabul, May 1, 2012

In what proved to be a very busy day for the White House, President Barack Obama made a surprise visit to Afghanistan on Tuesday. After being met and greeted by Ryan Crocker, the American ambassador to the country, upon landing, the president quickly made his way to the presidential palace in Kabul to attend a joint signing ceremony with Hamid Karzai, thereby extending the American-Afghan relationship into 2024.

For President Obama, who is preparing for a tough reelection fight over the summer against the presumptive Republican nominee, Mitt Romney, ceremony was an opportunity to not only convince Afghans that the United States would stand by them in the future but to assure the war weary American electorate that the fighting is close to ending.

Addressing the American people by television, Obama said, “we’ve traveled through more than a decade under the dark cloud of war. Yet here, in the predawn darkness of Afghanistan, we can see the light of new day on the horizon.”

Afghanistan, like the war in Iraq five years ago, has become a battle that is increasingly unpopular at home. A Washington Post/ABC News poll released last month reported that two-thirds of Americans surveyed no longer thought the war was worth fighting.

Republicans, usually more hawkish in national security policy, are split over how much longer the United States should stay in. Swing voters, the constituency that will determine the entire presidential election in November, are more determined than ever to pull all American troops out as soon as possible. The American people will thus hold the president to his 2014 withdrawal promise, a date that he himself imposed.

Obama’s speech was also aimed at the Afghan people. Though tired of the foreign presence in their country, they are just as concerned about what the future holds once NATO troops have left.

The signing of the US-Afghan strategic partnership agreement was designed to mitigate much of that worry, committing the United States and its NATO allies to a continuation of support for the Afghan Government after 2014.

Afghans may not take much solace in the alliance, however, since the document is short on details and questions regarding any future troop presence in Afghanistan still needs to be negotiated.

The Taliban insurgency, in the meantime, will be sure to test the strength of the civilian government in Kabul any case. The Afghan people will expect their security forces, hampered with logistical and command problems, to respond to any such attacks quickly and efficiently.

President Obama and the American people are ready to get out. The Afghan Government and people will have to live with the outcome.

Operation Frequent Wind, the helicopter evacuation of Saigon, South Vietnam, April 1975

Today, thirty-seven years ago, Saigon, the capital city of South Vietnam, fell to North Vietnamese forces, making the end of the Vietnam War and the beginning of a reunification period of the Southeast Asian country into a communist state.

Despite American pledges of military assistance in case the North violated the terms of the 1973 Paris Peace Accords, the United States stood by as North Vietnamese tanks rolled into the streets of Saigon.

Among the most enduring images of the termination of the war are helicopters evacuating Americans and South Vietnamese to navy ships deployed in the South China Sea. Seven thousand people were airlifted to safety in the final days of April 1975. Millions more remained to live under a communist despotism that has only in recent years begun to open up.

In the popular imagination, scenes of Operation Frequent Wind came to symbolize the uselessness of the Vietnam War. Certainly, having left behind nearly sixty thousand lives in Vietnam, the fall of Saigon signaled American defeat in Indochina.

Except, as Miguel Nunes Silva wrote at the Atlantic Sentinel last year, “it was not a military defeat by any standard.”

Every single major conventional military operation launched by the North was crushed by American and South Vietnamese forces. Vietnam was not better off economically with Hanoi’s victory—quite the opposite. The war cannot even be said to have brought stability to the region since communist Vietnam would go on to fight wars with China and Cambodia.

Although it borders on a modern Dolchstoßlegende, it can reasonably be argued that with American support, South Vietnam could have remained free. The pullout of American forces and financial support plunged the South Vietnamese economy and leadership in turmoil. If the North assumed that the United States would have returned to Vietnam in the event of renewed aggression, it may not have launched the Spring Offensive which culminated in its 1975 victory.

Instead, the Congress in Washington explicitly ruled out further military action in June 1973, paving the way for the communists to crush a demoralized South.

Fast forward thirty-seven years and a senior State Department official tells the National Journal, “The war on terror is over.” Obama bin Laden is dead, “people who once might have gone into Al Qaeda see an opportunity for a legitimate Islamism” in the sort of popular uprisings that swept the Muslim Brotherhood to power in Egypt. Yet nearly every day, Americans die in Afghanistan.

As in 1973, a majority of Americans is tired of the war. There is an attempt at “Afghanization” in the training of local security forces and negotiations with the enemy which could very well result in the emergence of an autonomous, Pashtun majority province in the south and eastern border region—only to have the Taliban storming the gates of Kabul as soon as Western military forces have left.

As was the case in South Vietnam, the Afghanistan that was liberated will again succumb to the barbarism of an ideology that is antithetical to individual liberty. The Taliban will resurge, emboldened by their victory over the decadent and “infidel” West. The region will be further destabilized.

India and Pakistan are already picking sides. New Delhi will cling to its alliance with the civilian government in Kabul as long as is possible, if only to keep the Pakistanis preoccupied. The military and intelligence services in Islamabad, by contrast, are revisiting their friendship with the Islamist insurgents. Iran’s sense of insecurity will increase if Sunni extremists return to power next door. Central Asian republics could be further weakened.

It is quite appropriate to ask why American troops are still operating in Afghanistan. But the argument that is made to justify a full military retreat in 2014 notwithstanding, the “war on terror” in Afghanistan ended years ago. The vast majority of suspected Al Qaeda members was eliminated in the months after the October invasion. Americans have since been nation building, that is, fighting a native insurgency while erecting institutions to foster stability in the country and a sense of nationhood among the Afghan people.

That may not be in America’s interests; it may not even be possible but suspending the effort after ten years begs the question—why did nearly three thousand coalition forces have to die?

A full withdrawal in 2014, leaving behind no American or international army presence and signaling an unwillingness on the part of the United States to reengage militarily if the Taliban threaten to return to power, would repeat the mistake of 1973 and foreshadow an inevitable fall of Kabul which we will one day remember just as sadly as we remember the fall of Saigon today.

A C-130 Hercules cargo aircraft takes off at Karshi-Khanabad Air Base, Uzbekistan, March 26, 2005 (US Air Force/Master Sergeant Scott T. Sturkol)

At a time when the United States are preparing to withdraw their troops from Afghanistan, American cooperation with Russia, compromised on other foreign policy issues, including the missile defense program in Eastern Europe and the situation in Syria, turns out to look like a promising deal for both sides.

American authorities have come to understand the importance of securing Russian support in order to operate the departure from Afghanistan in safety.

Another factor adding to American-Russian cooperation is the continuing souring of relations between Washington and some of its regional allies, namely Pakistan, especially after last year’s killing of more than twenty Pakistani soldiers by an errant NATO air strike.

Analysis

Despite their many differences in such parts of the world as Eastern Europe and the Middle East, Russia and the United States have embarked on a vast project aimed at facilitating the future withdrawal of American armed forces from Afghanistan across the Russian territory. This project will complement previously signed agreements allowing the transit of combat troops bound for Afghan battlefields.

Up to this day, the United States military has mainly relied upon Pakistan and a few Central Asia states (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan) to transport its troops and equipment to Afghanistan. The so called Northern Distribution Network represents a collection of routes which cross these countries’ territories and link them with western parts of Russia.

With the departure of forces from Afghan soil planned for 2014, American authorities are actively negotiating “retrograde transit” agreements to allow the reverse movement, from Central Asia back to the Western Hemisphere. Despite the signing of such accords with the majority of Central Asian states, some of them are not really willing to aid Washington in this vast enterprise.

It is not only about Pakistan which decided to cut off supplies after the November 2011 incident when twenty-four of its soldiers were killed as a result of a misguided air strike.

Uzbekistan, whose president Islam Karimov became a staunch supporter of the NATO coalition in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks but soon ousted all foreign troops from the Khanabad military base in 2005, is one of these fair weather allies playing a double game.

Uzbekistan is reportedly trying to extort generous transit fees from the American Government in exchange of its full support of the withdrawal operation.

In this context, an interesting agreement is being negotiated with Russia. It is expected that Russian authorities will create a regional transport hub in the Volga River city of Ulyanovsk from where American troops and equipment would be flown into Europe and North America after having been transported by trucks or rail from Afghanistan.

In response to those Russians who think that a rapprochement with the United States on the Afghan issue is not only useless but harmful to their country’s strategic interests in the region, the Kremlin affirmed that this cooperation is based exclusively on commercial calculations and will directly benefit Russia’s state budget.

The Diplomat reports incoming Russian president Vladimir Putin’s words from a recent statement about NATO:

We understand what is happening in Afghanistan, right? We are interested in things there being under control, right? And we do not want our soldiers to fight on the Tajik-Afghan border. Well, NATO and the Western community is present there. God give them good health. Let them work.

Russia is clearly not only expecting to gain from its upcoming cooperation with the United States but also seeking to weaken ties between Washington and its Central Asian partners.

According to the Kremlin’s reasoning, if the United States need less of Kyrgyzstan or Uzbekistan, it will lose interest in cooperating with them. Time will tell if this strategy of Russian policy makers will actually succeed.

Wikistrat Bottom Lines

William Hague, the British foreign secretary, February 21

One cannot govern well by reacting to events.

The British Government must share this view, as it is the intention behind the National Security Council. It is supposed to put day to day crises into a larger context and shape a strategic response to them. Speaking in Washington DC several months after the NSC was created, William Hague, the foreign secretary, boasted that it had already made Britain’s Afghanistan policy strategically “coherent,” among other things.

Yet Britain’s handling of Iran suggests that this is not the case. The Iranians ought to be the West’s allies in Afghanistan but saber rattling over their nuclear program is forcing them to undermine NATO’s efforts there.

If London really wants to resolve these crises, it needs to adopt a truly strategic approach toward them, not react to them as though they were unrelated events.

It was reported last week that Iran may have tried to exacerbate anti-American riots in Afghanistan in February, after careless soldiers burned copies of the Quran.

The Tehran regime ordered its agents to “exploit the anticipated public outrage by trying to instigate violent protests in the capital, Kabul, and across the western part of the country, according to American officials,” reported The New York Times.

The typical reaction to these stories by war hawks is to see Tehran’s mischief making as a sinister bid for world mastery, not defensive measures meant to deter Western military action.

When Iranian weapons allegedly destined for the Taliban were seized in Afghanistan last March, then defense secretary Liam Fox said, “This confirms my often repeated view of the dangers that Iran poses not only through its nuclear program but its continuing policy of destabilizing its neighbors.”

Supplying weapons to help the Taliban kill [ISAF] soldiers is a clear example of the threat they pose.

In response to a question by Robert Halfon shortly before the Quran riots about Iranian activities in Afghanistan, Hague congratulated the hawkish parliamentarian for assiduously “pointing out the malign influence of Iran on its neighbors in several directions.”

The hawk talk about Tehran’s mischief making in Afghanistan adds another stroke to the war drums that have been beaten over Iran of late but it actually undermines the government’s goals vis-à-vis those countries.

It is unlikely that the latter will participate in a regional settlement to end the war if foreign powers persist in viewing them as a malign actor, worsening relations between Tehran and the West and making it harder to negotiate a solution to the nuclear impasse.

Instead of reacting to these crises separately, the British Government must adopt a joint approach on them, with sound strategic thinking underpinning it. Such an approach requires a rethink on Iran’s role in Afghanistan, recognition that its actions toward one impact the other, and various diplomatic steps to help achieve the goals stated above.

Although some of its activities may suggest otherwise, Iran’s interests in Afghanistan coincide with Western objectives, which the government must keep in mind. As former diplomat Sherard Cowper-Coles observed correctly in Cables from Kabul: The Inside Story of the West’s Afghanistan Campaign (2012), Tehran has “no rational interest in continuing instability in [the country], or in a Taliban victory.”

Given this, why do they mischief make? “Iran currently views its interests in Afghanistan through the prism of US-Iranian enmity,” write Alireza Nader and Joya Laha in a study (PDF) for the RAND Corporation.

Iranian leaders view the US and coalition presence in Afghanistan with great anxiety, especially in light of the US military threats against Iran’s nuclear facilities. As it has reportedly been employed in Iraq, Iran’s asymmetric strategy would use proxy insurgent forces to tie down and distract the United States from focusing on Iran and its nuclear program, and provides a retaliatory capability in the event of US military action.

Unless Britain rethinks its rhetoric on Iranian interference in Afghanistan—recognizing that it is defensive, not offensive—it will force Tehran to undermine NATO efforts there even further. It can forget a regional settlement underwriting the country’s stability after 2014 if it excludes one of the biggest stakeholders.

In addition to a rethink on Iranian behavior, the government needs to take a number of diplomatic steps to restart dialogue between Tehran and London, so that an end to the war in Afghanistan and an end to the nuclear impasse can be negotiated.

First, the United Kingdom should reopen its embassy in Iran. “Without embassies, the basic function of diplomacy—keeping some kind of dialogue going even when views are diametrically opposed—is essentially suspended,” the former diplomat and minister Mark Malloch-Brown has written.

This should be followed up by Britain beginning a conversation with Tehran about how it can work with the West in Afghanistan. If it persuades the Iranians to help, not hinder the allies in ending the war, it may be easier to negotiate a solution to their nuclear program, as there will be an element of trust between the parties.

William Hague once said that the National Security Council will not only minimize risks to the United Kingdom but “look for the positive trends in the world, since our security requires seizing opportunity as well as mitigating risk.” Yet when it comes to Iran and Afghanistan, the government has emphasized risk over opportunity.

If it wants to achieve its goals for either country, this emphasis needs to change.

An Australian service light armored vehicle drives through Tangi Valley, Afghanistan, March 29, 2011

The face saving strategy of the United States to facilitate an honorable withdrawal from Afghanistan—reaching a political settlement with the Taliban—seems to be failing.

Last month, Mullah Omar’s Taliban leadership announced their decision to suspend the peace negotiations. The official reason given for the pullout was the delay and apparent reluctance of the Americans to release prisoners held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, an important prerequisite for the talks to be held.

However, the fact that the suspension came in the wake of the massacre of seventeen civilians in Kandahar by an American soldier clearly suggests a link between the two.

The massacre was the most recent in a series of incidents—the burning of Qurans at the Bagram base and the emergence of a video of American soldiers urinating over the dead bodies of Afghans—that has resulted in protests and demonstrations against the presence of foreign troops.

The vulnerability of the foreign soldiers in Afghanistan and government and military advisors currently stationed there has increased as a result. There have been more attacks perpetrated by members of the Afghan National Security Forces on their foreign counterparts as well—a direct consequence of the anti-Americanism.

Whether these are the result of Taliban infiltration or people acting on their accord, it does make it tougher for the United States to take on the Taliban militarily, just as this year’s fighting season is set to commence.

Although peace talks may yet resume, the intensification of anti-Americanism in Afghanistan in recent months will make it harder to reach a settlement with the Taliban if they do.

A satisfactory settlement, from the American point of view, seems highly untenable to begin with. The United States cannot hope to extract significant concessions from the Taliban from a weaker bargaining position. Although the Taliban are probably not capable of ensuring a military victory similar to their triumph in the 1990s, the NATO powers are and probably will not be in a position to coerce them into accepting their demands either.

The present situation is likely to strengthen the hardliners within the Quetta Shura who have been ideologically opposed to holding talks with the Americans from the start. They have always alleged that the United States mistreat Islam and the Afghan people and could use the recent incidents to get their way. Mullah Omar may be keen to avoid an internal struggle at this critical juncture and give in to the hardliners.

It is not just the internal squabbling which should concern Mullah Omar. If that was the case, he would not have agreed to the peace talks in the first place.

His political calculations are guided by realism, as evident from his decision to negotiate with the Americans, and it is this realism that would compel him to pay heed to the present climate in the country.

All major political groups in Afghanistan are taking note of the prevailing sentiments in the country in order to win brownie points with the masses. President Hamid Karzai has stood his ground during negotiations for the American-Afghan security partnership under the pretext of preventing further erosion of Afghan sovereignty. Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s faction, the Hizb-e-Islami, a key opponent of Mullah Omar’s, called off peace talks as well. If the Taliban were the only ones to resume negotiations, it could further erode their legitimacy.

Finally, especially in light of recent American concessions on counterinsurgencies tactics, notably the transfer of control of the Bagram prison to the Afghan army and possible suspension of or at least reduction in night raids, the Taliban may decide that all they have to do is wait for the bulk of the remaining NATO troops to withdraw in 2014 to reclaim the initiative.

Presidents Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran and Emomalii Rahmon of Tajikistan during a joint press conference, September 4, 2011

The head of US Central Command, General James Mattis, held talks with Tajik president Emomalii Rahmon last Saturday to enlist commitments of continued support for American and NATO operations in neighboring Afghanistan.

Rahmon told Mattis that “Tajikistan would like to see further strengthening of the development of ties with the United States in the sphere of security and the establishment of peace and stability in the region.”

On Monday, Rahmon met with Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmedinejad who came bearing promises of pipelines and railways during the fifth annual Regional Economic Cooperation Conference on Afghanistan.

Ahmedinijad came away from the talks pleased, telling reporters that Tajikistan and Iran are culturally “parts of the same body.”

Caught between the Americans, a thousand kilometer border with Afghanistan, and a cultural connection to Iran, Tajikistan is indeed stuck economically and politically between conflicting interests and allies.

Tajikistan is landlocked, mountainous, and the one of Central Asia’s poorest states. Its government is nominally a republic. In reality, Emomalii Rahmon has been ruling the one party dominant state since 1992.

A political survivor, Rahmon held onto power throughout the Tajik civil war of the 1990s and secured a third term in an election in 2006.

The country is dependent on Russia and Uzbekistan for energy. Its main sources of income are the aluminum industry, cotton growing and remittances from Tajiks working abroad.

Uzbekistan recently announced that it will be stopping the flow of gas into Tajikistan, reportedly in order to meet commitments to larger buyers such as China. Regional analysts believe there is more politics to the stoppage than practicality. Tajikistan’s gas demand annually equals about what Uzbekistan produces in a single day.

The Tajiks are looking for ways to diversify their energy sources and the Iranian promises sound tempting.

Iran and Tajikistan share a cultural and linguistic history but little else. Ideologically and politically they diverge and economically, neither can quite afford to pay for the Iranian promises.

Both countries are predominantly Muslim but Iran is a bombastic Shī’ah bastion and Tajikistan mostly Sunni of the Central Asian persuasion.

Tajikistan is politically secular, as is the norm in Central Asia. Political secularism in the region derives from the Soviet system and is also influenced by Sufism and pre-Islamic regional history. The 2006 election was boycotted by “mainline” opposition parties such as the Islamic Renaissance Party, which receives moral support from Iran and is the only legal Islamic political party in Tajikistan.

To further illustrate the ideological divide, Tajikistan has been criticized by Iranian representatives for imposing “Islamaphobic rules on the population” such as banning the hijab and preventing underage children from attending mosque.

Ideological differences are complicating factors not deal breakers but Iran’s promises remain pipedreams because of economics and security.

Rahmon and Ahmedinijad, joined by Afghan president Hamid Karzai released a statement after talks in the Tajik capital city of Dushanbe which read that the three had “reached an understanding on how to cooperate more productively to accelerate construction of a railway from Iran to Tajikistan through Afghanistan.” They also announced plans to build an “energy line” across the three countries.

Delegations from Dushanbe and Kabul are scheduled to meet in Tehran in two months to discuss the implementation of the projects, according to the same statement from President Rahmon’s office.

The reality is that Tajikistan cannot afford the projects. The technical and security challenges of building a pipeline or railway across Afghanistan are unlikely to be easily surmounted. Iran, the target of multiple international sanctions because of its nuclear program, is also unlikely to be able to fund its promises or attract many investors for the risky venture.

Tajikistan is in a tight spot. Uzbekistan, reportedly irked by Tajik hydropower projects upstream, is squeezing the state by cutting off the gas supply.

Iran is under siege and scrounging for allies. It hopes to exploit the cultural connection with Tajikistan by offering promises which the Tajik Government must realize are pipedreams.

The war in Afghanistan goes on and while the Americans plot their exit by 2014, they have made efforts to reenlist Central Asian support for the cause.

Australian ISAF forces on the outskirt Hindu Kush mountains near Zabul, Afghanistan, December 10, 2008

As deliberations over the final shape of the strategic pact between Afghanistan and the United States are underway, a number of obstacles remain. The Afghan Government, the insurgents and neighboring states are all stakeholders who could undermine the final version of the treaty.

The strategic partnership is meant to ensure some residual American presence in Afghanistan after 2014, the shape of which is yet unclear.

The Americans consider their sustained presence in the country crucial to preventing Afghanistan from once again becoming a safe haven and operating base for Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations. The need to preserve American interests in Central Asia and balance the influence of China and Russia in the region increases the importance of the pact. The loss of Afghanistan as an operating base would prevent the United States from further expanding their influence in Central Asia.

President Barack Obama may also be keen to finalize a deal to dispel the notion that he is bungling America’s future role in Afghanistan. He faces a potentially tough reelection battle in November when his lack of clarity and direction in Afghanistan will probably be criticized by Republicans.

The pact is of critical importance to the Afghan Government as well. Having been gradually marginalized by the Americans, who took unilateral steps to engage the Taliban, Hamid Karzai stands to regain his stature in negotiations. The recent spurt of anti-Americanism in Afghanistan will certainly work in the president’s favor and give him added leverage vis-à-vis the United States.

That the balance in Afghan-American relations has shifted was evidenced by the decision to transfer control of the prison facility at Bagram in northeastern Afghanistan to local control at a much earlier date than the United States would have preferred.

Another contentious issue on which the Americans may be compelled to offer concessions against their better judgement is night raids. While a huge source of resentment among the Afghans, the NATO forces consider night rights a highly effective counterinsurgency tactic.

A partnership agreement could jeopardize peace talks with the Taliban insurgents which have now been stalled. Taliban demands—a complete withdrawal of foreign troops from the country—and the aim of the strategic partnership are contradictory. This puts an additional burden on the United States to work out the details of the pact in such a way that they can preserve their security interests without permanently suspending negotiations.

Finally, the concerns of the regional actors, particularly Iran, have to be taken into consideration.

Tehran considers the American presence in Afghanistan a major threat to its security and a hindrance to its influence in the country. This perception is likely to continue and increase if the United States maintain a presence in the country post 2014.

It is for this reason that Iran has resorted to using its clout within Afghanistan’s political setup and bribes to foment anti-American sentiments and convince parliamentarians to block any strategic partnership.

Moreover, the measured support provided by Iran to the Taliban at present to thwart the American war effort could be scaled up significantly in the long run if the United States are allowed to deploy a residual force in the country.

The pact, it seems, will only define the role and nature of America’s post 2014 presence in the region without minimizing the existing currents and countercurrents. Far from entrenching the status quo, there is the danger that a long term partnership could actually intensify the conflict.

An American Marine in Afghanistan, February 21

Negotiations between the Americans and the Afghan Taliban were seen by many as too good to be true. Now that the talks have officially stalled, the scramble is to explain why and to label this new roadblock as either a tactical pause or an abject failure.

Subsumed by the stalling are the small stepping stones to progress which the difficult negotiations have produced and the fact that “still, the door is very deliberately ajar,” as former United Nations official Michael Sempel put it.

Plans remain in place for the Taliban to open an office in Qatar—a move that is seen as a significant confidence building measure.

Negotiations to define the conditions under which the Pentagon would release five Taliban prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay to Qatari custody are still moving forward, although this would be a controversial transfer if it does go through.

Last week, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told The Washington Post that the United States were still willing to “work with all Afghans who are committed to an inclusive reconciliation process” despite Taliban expressions of frustration.

Of particular concern is the belief that hardliners within the Taliban leadership will be able to derail negotiations permanently, overriding moderate elements that have put effort into the hope of a negotiated peace.

American officials, as reported by the Reuters press agency, believe that the suspension of talks was a tactical move, the result of internal Taliban dynamics rather than a definitive end of negotiations.

Analysts at the International Crisis Group, on the other hand, contest that “US efforts to negotiate with the Taliban to date have failed and risk further destabilizing the country and the region.” The group recommends that the UN step in and appoint a team of negotiators.

The ICG cites the recent downturn in Afghan-American relations—the Koran burning accident and Sergeant Robert Bales’ rampage in Kandahar—as pointing to a shift in Afghan perceptions of the American role in the country.

However, in their statement suspending negotiations the Taliban did not mention either incident. The fact that the Taliban did not seize upon the recent incidents and exploited them to stoke the flames of Afghan discontent with the American military presence led some American officials to express relief. The Taliban statement also, significantly, did not forswear future negotiations.

Only time will tell if the Taliban plan on returning to the table but the Americans are likely to be waiting. A negotiated peace remains NATO’s best hope for a dignified exit from Afghanistan. Despite the ICG’s claims, a United Nations negotiating team is unlikely to be more successful than an American one as the Taliban relationship with the international community has hardly been amiable.

The Afghan Government will be waiting at the table too, though the Taliban has not hinted that it is open to negotiating with them. The Karzai Administration has demanded a place in the negotiations but has been generally left out of efforts to date.

With Karzai’s term expiring in 2014, a political vacuum looms. Kabul’s best hope is to pull the Taliban out of militancy and into the role of opposition if possible.

The recent stall is unlikely to be permanent; the potential benefits of moving forward with negotiations are simply too lucrative for either the Taliban or the Americans to declare the effort a failure and walk away.

“Deep breaths, and not hyperventilation, are required here,” an American official said.