Unlikely allies: U.S., Iran separately fighting a common foe
-- the Afghan drug trade
Philip Dine
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
06/18/2006
WASHINGTON -- The critical fight against the illicit
drug trade in Afghanistan
is getting help from an unlikely source: Iran.
Though rarely discussed in this country, Iran's
role in combating Afghan
trafficking has been by all accounts highly positive and has
come at great
cost, reflected most dramatically in the deaths of thousands
of Iranian border
police.
Iran also has helped build border security posts
inside Afghanistan to catch or deter narcotics smugglers, a
program described to the Post-Dispatch by the
former Afghan interior minister who worked with Iranians to
develop it.
"Iran has played a very constructive role
in combating the drug trade,
especially along the border it shares with Afghanistan,"
said Antonio Costa,
executive director of the Vienna-based United Nations office
on drugs and
crime. Iran's Afghan aid, he said, includes "providing
economic support to help opium farmers switch to alternative
crops."
Iran's effort is occurring against a backdrop
of volatile developments: the
mounting opium poppy cultivation and heroin production in Afghanistan
fuels a
fierce insurgency that is killing U.S. forces and aims to overthrow
the Afghan
government.
Just a few days ago, the United States announced
that 11,000 new coalition
troops would attack insurgents in the drug-ridden provinces
in the south. Three straight years of bumper crops have flooded
Iran and Western Europe with Afghan heroin, a trail now leading
to the United States as well, with Chicago the chief distribution
center and nearby cities such as St. Louis affected.
Missouri and Illinois officials say the highly
pure heroin is attracting
younger, affluent users and causing a spike in overdoses. U.S.
talk about Iran
in recent months has been sharply negative amid concerns over
the Middle East
nation's pursuit of a nuclear program.
As founder of the Afghanistan-America foundation,
former Republican congressman Don Ritter has led efforts to
build an Afghan market economy.
He returned Monday from his 16th trip to Afghanistan
since 2001.
"In terms of collaboration between the Iranians
and the Afghanis on the drug
problem," Ritter said, "you never hear anything about
it, you don't read about
it." Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., chairman of a key
house panel dealing
with Afghanistan, learned recently of iran's activities.
"The fact that the Iranians are as anti-American
as they are, and yet they're
playing a positive role in the opium trade, is somewhat surprising,"
he said.
Iran's role
Iran shares a 600-mile border with Afghanistan.
Officials at Iran's permanent
mission to the United Nations in Vienna say that in seizing
tons of Afghan
heroin, they've lost 3,500 security troops over the past decade.
That is a
reliable figure, according to a variety of experts on the region.
Indeed, Iran has tackled the drug problem far
more rigorously than
Afghanistan's other major neighbor, Pakistan - a top U.S. ally
in the war on
terror - says Ashraf Haidari, first secretary for security and
development at
the Afghan Embassy in Washington.
"As far as Pakistan, we don't have much cooperation,"
Haidari said. "They have
not been as effective as we would have hoped. Not only traffickers
but also
terrorists regularly cross borders and attack.
"We are getting assistance more from Iran.
One reason is they have a more
established, cleaner counter-narcotics police force. They are
watching for drug traffickers coming in from the Afghan side,
and interdict them and arrest them and put them in jails in
Iran."
Former Afghan Interior Minister Ali Jalali saw
firsthand another side of Iran's anti-narcotics effort. Starting
in 2003 with a trip to Tehran, he worked for two years with
his Iranian counterpart to build 25 security posts.
"I went with the interior minister of Iran
and jointly we opened the security
posts along the border," Jalali said. "Iran is very
serious about fighting
drugs. The policy of Iran regarding the stability in Afghanistan
is very
positive."
Iran's interdiction efforts forced traffickers
to establish a northern route
through Central Asia to move some Afghan heroin. Iran also joins
in regular
talks with Afghan and British officials to discuss cooperation
in stemming the
drug trade.
Iran's drug problem
Iran has strong self-interest - and a long way
to go - in this endeavor. Partly due to its proximity to Afghanistan's
fertile poppy fields, Iran suffers from a heroin problem Costa
calls "the worst in the world."
Iranian officials in Vienna acknowledge their
country has at least 2 million
addicts - which spawns serious social problems. World health
officials estimate that 67 percent of HIV cases in Iran stem
from drug use.
Iran also is a transit route for Afghan heroin
headed to Turkey and Western
Europe, creating security risks. Half of all Afghan heroin is
consumed in or
goes through Iran, experts say.
Another factor prodding Iran is its tense relationship
with the former Taliban
regime, which Iranian leaders do not want reinstalled in power.
"I think what you have with Iran," Ritter
said, "is that they're a country with a very long border
with Afghanistan and a very long border with Iraq. The Iraqi
situation is quite unstable as far as they are concerned. They've
got their hands full on the Iraq border, so they have pretty
much sought stability on the Afghan side."
And, he notes, Iran has built a trade surplus
with Afghanistan, which it
doesn't want disrupted.
Lack of coordination
Ever since Iranians seized American hostages in
1979, the two countries haven't had diplomatic relations, which
now prevents them from coordinating their efforts against Afghan
drugs.
The mutual lack of recognition was reflected when
St. Louis native Tom
Schweich, the State Department's point man on Afghan narcotics,
delivered the
U.S. statement at a conference in Qatar earlier this year. Before
he did so,
the large Iranian delegation staged a walkout. Nor did Schweich
attempt to talk to the Iranians.
"I have no contact with the Iranians,"
he said. "There are much higher forces
at work here."
Schweich understands that the showdown over Iran's
nuclear ambitions give him
no room to maneuver.
"Until that's resolved, I'm going to steer
clear of any dealings with the
Iranians," he said.
Britain, meanwhile, has provided millions of dollars
for security equipment and bullet-proof vests for Iranian border
guards "to assist with the interdiction
of opiates."
"We are, as a whole," said Steve Atkins,
British Embassy spokesman in
Washington, "happy with the cooperation we are seeing from
them."
The silence
At a sparsely attended 8 a.m. House oversight
hearing in March, a RAND Corp.
expert on Afghanistan briefly noted Iran's role in combating
the drug trade.
The panel's chairman, Rep. Rohrabacher, expressed
surprise: "Well, that is the
first time that I have heard 'decent' and 'Iran' in the same
breath for about
10 years now."
Some suggest that the United States has been hesitant
to say something positive about Iran during U.S. efforts to
mobilize support for curbing Iran's nuclear program.
"The administration certainly hasn't spoken
about it," said Rep. William
Delahunt, D-Mass., ranking member of the House oversight panel.
But Iran's
activities are likely influencing the new U.S. readiness to
negotiate directly, Delahunt said: "Clearly something's
happening, because our policy has shifted."
Beyond boosting the anti-narcotics campaign, collaboration
might also improve
overall American-Iranian relations, says Rick Barton, director
of post-conflict reconstruction at the Center for Strategic
and International Studies. He is examining progress in Afghanistan
for the U.S. Agency for International
Development.
"If you work on areas where you have agreement,
you may find you can reach
agreement on things you actually disagree on," said Barton,
past deputy United
Nations high commissioner for refugees. "Where they're
doing bad stuff, let's
be clear. Where they're doing stuff that's positive, let's acknowledge
that -
and expand it."
But for now, Rohrabacher said, the nuclear dispute
"overrides" all else. "It's
pretty hard to give credit to someone who is doing something
good on one hand," he said, "if they're trying to
build a nuclear bomb on the other hand."
Iran may be ready to play its anti-drug
card in the negotiations. According to
the Iranian press, a government official recently warned that
if his country is overly pressed on the nuclear issue, it might
relax its anti-trafficking efforts and "the torrent of
narcotic drugs will sweep away the West."
