Iran In Position To Target U.S. Interests : Oxford Analytica

Senior Iranian leaders repeatedly have vowed to target U.S. interests around the world should their country come under attack from the United States or Israel. Accordingly, Tehran is positioning itself to inflict significant pain on the United States and its allies in multiple countries.
Iran has historically been active in Afghanistan, as have Kabul's other powerful neighbors, Pakistan and Russia. However, there is growing evidence that Tehran has recalculated its strategic interests there as tension rises with the United States over its nuclear ambitions.
As the world's largest Shiite country, Iran has been the traditional foreign backer of Afghanistan's Shiites. After Russian withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989, Iran became a patron of the Northern Alliance, while Pakistan supported the victorious Taliban. Iran viewed the rise of the Sunni Taliban with deep concern. After the fall of central Afghanistan to the group in 1998, Iran said it had the right to take all necessary action to protect its security interests. It followed up with a number of measures.
Since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, Iran pursued two major strategic objectives in Afghanistan:
1. Partnership. It has developed a close strategic partnership with President Hamid Karzai's government:
--Iran and Afghanistan have joint trade, energy, investment, cultural and scientific projects.
--This year, they are expected to begin work on road and rail links.
--They have also cooperated in efforts to crack down on the rising drug trade.
2. Influence. Tehran also has moved to exert influence in western and central Afghanistan. Tehran's goal is to secure strategic depth and influence in areas close to the border. Some activities are directed at the United States.
The bilateral relationship has been largely cooperative. However, the prospect of conflict with the United States has added a new dimension. Tehran regards its involvement in the country as a hedge against a possible U.S. or Israeli strike against nuclear facilities in Iran. This means that Iran is prepared to undermine U.S. interests in the country should relations between Washington and Tehran deteriorate substantially.
There is scope for friction in three main areas:
--Taliban. Iranian "hedging" has involved opening contacts with Afghan insurgent groups over the past two years. There is evidence of direct contacts between Iranian intelligence agents and the Taliban leadership. There are also signs that the Taliban have sought to acquire weapons and weapons technology from Iran. However, there are no indications that Iran has responded to such moves.
--Other Insurgents. Individuals within the Iranian government have provided money and training to a small number of foreign jihadists in eastern Afghanistan. There has been some cooperation between insurgents in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, who use Iran as a transit country.
--Warlords. Iran could also use its close relationship with warlords to further undermine U.S. efforts in Afghanistan by spreading violence to western and central parts of the country.
Yet this hedging strategy entails several risks:
--A major Iranian effort to fund Afghan insurgent groups would jeopardize Iranian-Afghan relations and their growing political and economic ties.
--A stronger Sunni-based insurgency in Pakistan and Afghanistan would undermine Iran's broader Shiite interests.
--A third and more significant risk is the destabilization of Afghanistan. A further deterioration into lawlessness could trigger a range of spillover effects that would have a negative impact on all of the countries in the region.
Iran will not jeopardize its close relationship with Afghanistan and bolster Sunni extremist groups unless it is backed into a corner. A sharp deterioration in U.S.-Iranian relations risks triggering such a move. However, if this can be avoided, Tehran will probably remain more helpful than harmful to U.S. and NATO interests in Afghanistan, as well as those of the government in Kabul.
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