Petraeus Doesn’t Sweat Iran’s Rockets in Afghanistan

Wired.com, Yes, Iran’s elite forces are providing the Taliban with dangerous rockets, overcoming Shia Iran’s longstanding antipathy for the Sunni extremists in Afghanistan. But Gen. David Petraeus, commander of NATO troops in Afghanistan, played down Iran’s interference like it was no big deal.

In testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday, Petraeus confirmed that NATO had recently intercepted a weapons shipment that the British linked to Iran. According to Petraeus, Iran’s Qods Force, a branch of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, provided 48 122 millimeter rockets to a “known Taliban facilitator.” The rockets are twice the range of the 107-mm rockets the Taliban typically employ, with “twice the bursting radius.”

It’s significant that Petraeus laid the blame for the rockets at the feet of the Qods Force. When Petraeus was commander in Iraq, U.S. forces came across a kind of shape-charged homemade bomb called an Explosively Formed Penetrator that commanders understood came from Iran. But there was a debate amongst analysts about whether those bombs entered Iraq through the black market or were part of a deliberate Iranian strategy of interference.

Petraeus’ remarks were unambiguous: Iran “without question” provides “weapons, training and funding” to the Taliban, Petraeus said, despite the sectarian divides and history of acrimony to them. But he also made it out like the Iran/Taliban relationship was small beer.

Any cooperation Iran provides the Taliban comes in “measured amounts,” Petraeus told the Senate panel. It befits what he called a “very cynical approach” to the Taliban taken by Tehran. Iran will provide the Taliban with enough aid “to make life difficult for us,” Petraeus said, “but not enough to actually succeed.”

The rockets aren’t the first Iranian weapons believed to have traversed Iran’s border with Afghanistan. Last summer, Afghanistan’s spy agency reported that Iran provided the Taliban with fresh batteries for shoulder-fired SA-7 missiles.

While the rockets may be an upgrade for the Taliban, Iran’s meager support may not be: the State Department has tracked Iranian “weapons, training and funding” in Afghanistan for years. And various U.S. assessment teams have found that there isn’t much evidence to suggest deep Iranian meddling in the country. Without much excitement, Petraeus described Iranian involvement in Afghanistan as a mix of soft power (shutting off fuel supplies) and outright attempts “to influence the political process” in a manner “similar to what we saw in Iraq.”

Of course, Iran was a long-time enemy of the Taliban when it was in power, and the Iranian regime worked with the U.S. during the post-9/11 invasion. If Petraeus is correct, the opportunity to bloody the U.S.’ nose is enough to make bygones be bygones.