India’s national security officials met with officials from seven regional states on November 10, the first such gathering by New Delhi since the Taliban took control of Kabul in August.
New Delhi deals with a Taliban-led Afghanistan depends critically on its relations with Central Asian states, at least shortly. Still, India’s outreach to Iran holds significant weight when considering potential collaborations with other states in this region.
Indian foreign minister S Jaishankar met Iran’s then President-elect and now President Ebrahim Raisi before officially being president. In August, only ten days after Raisi was sworn in as Iran’s eighth president, the Taliban took power in Afghanistan. This made Afghanistan the top priority for this outreach.
The Iranian View
It is most likely that India did not take part in the Tehran event due to the presence of Pakistan, which was held in October. The reciprocity in diplomacy also permitted Islamabad to decline the invitation to Delhi.
Rear Admiral Ali Shamkhani, Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council of Iran, spoke in Delhi about the positive movement of the Tehran meeting to Delhi, and regional states pressed for a crisis meeting in Afghanistan, calling for an ‘inclusive’ political ecosystem.
India and Iran have regularly considered two states with the potential to cooperate following the fall of Kabul before these diplomatic manoeuvres.
Both states supported the Ahmed Shah Masood-led Northern Alliance’s pushback against the same Taliban during the 1990s, which explains this view. But as they say, in politics, 24 hours is a long time, and in geopolitics, 20 years is a time capsule.
Even though India and Iran agree on many points regarding the Afghanistan crisis, many other factors stand between India and Iran. It was a double-edged sword for Iran that the US was in Afghanistan. However, Tehran has benefited from the security blanket provided by the US over all these years and many regional players neighbouring Afghanistan.
Iran, like others, is now concerned over the new security paradigms appearing along the long border with Afghanistan. Iran views the Afghan crisis differently from India, however. Iran should not forget that Tehran has supported both a section of the Taliban and the Afghan government and its processes at the same time for many years.
In the words of scholar Vinay Kaura, “ambivalence” and “conciliation” are at once “overt” and “covert”. While widespread reports claim that Tehran also offered refuge to al-Qaeda leaders fleeing Afghanistan as US military operations intensified, Iran has been engaging with the Taliban for a long time.
Although the Taliban announced an interim cabinet after the August takeover, Iran did not take it well. Former Afghan leaders Hamid Karzai and Abdullah were contacted by the new Iranian foreign minister shortly after news filtered in of a largely Pashtun-led Taliban interim cabinet, with positions held by Haqqani Network members.
Tehran has fought the Haqqanis before, and figures such as Sirajuddin Haqqani becoming the Taliban’s Minister of Interior pose a challenge to Tehran’s vision of an ‘inclusive environment in Afghanistan. Maulavi Mahdi, a Shia Hazara, was appointed by the Taliban as district shadow governor to create a bridge between the Taliban, Hazaras, and thereby Iran.
Despite maintaining a certain level of acceptance from the Iranian security establishment, this, in conjunction with social media reports from Taliban-aligned accounts that showed them providing security during Ashura commemorations, did not do enough. Currently, Iranian foreign policy is vehemently anti-American.
The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) signed in 2015, which culminated the long-running P5+1 negotiations with Iran regarding its nuclear program, was expected to be an important milestone. Iran was seeking to break out of decades of economic and political isolation through these actions.
An abrupt exit from this agreement by no less than former US President Donald Trump in 2018 and the return of military threats by both the US and Israel emboldened the conservatives in Iran, many of whom had opposed the JCPOA negotiations being designed by moderates in Iran.
Later this month, the P5+1 and Iran will return to the drawing board. Iran has meanwhile continued to work on comprehensive strategic agreements with China and Russia, increasing its hedging capacity.
It remains the biggest draw in Iran’s geopolitical thinking, even in Afghanistan. The dual approach to Afghanistan, as mentioned earlier, allowed Tehran to raise the Fatemiyoun Brigade, a Shia militia in Syria that fought against ISIS, propped up the Assad regime against western pressures, and resisted threats brought by Saudi Arabia and Israel.
Iran has access to a battle-hardened ecosystem among Afghan militias, despite the challenges of reintegrating the Afghan Shias of the Fatemiyoun.
As seen from a distance, Iran has become the neighbour to a Sunni Islam theocracy and maintaining semblances of peace at the border will require diligent management of this ideological divide.
From an Iranian perspective on Afghanistan today, one can observe all of the above at work simultaneously, a ‘hot and cold’ approach, one built around intervention and recession.
Hassan Kazemi Qomi, Iran’s Special Envoy for Afghanistan, travelled to Kabul earlier this month, and during the visit, he equated western sanctions against Iran with the tactic employed against Afghanistan, causing widespread anguish to Afghans.
The Indian View
The India-Iran relations have largely been on hold, despite regular high-level exchanges between the two countries. This is because US sanctions against Tehran have put an end to oil trade between the countries.
Iran should be viewed from the Indian perspective as a survivalist state, transactional in nature, and highly challenging to deal with sanctions or not. For the reasons mentioned earlier, Iran can manage the fallout of Afghanistan and the rise of the Taliban.
Indians and Iranians have repeatedly called for a representative and inclusive government in Afghanistan. Still, Iran has a much more strategic perspective than an outright theological one, despite its proximity to the country.
If India is to work with Iran on Afghanistan beyond just the basics, it must overcome setbacks in the ties between New Delhi and Tehran over the past few years, which resulted from US sanctions.
According to Iran’s envoy to India, New Delhi should resume oil trade with Iran, Ali Chegeni. Without it, trade between India and Iran collapses almost wholly.
Indian legacy programs like the Chabahar port and the Farzad B field has languished for years, and in some cases for decades, progressing at a snail’s pace. Recent announcements of major projects between the two states have been rare.
India’s efforts to pay Iranian oil dues for many years, including the use of Halkbank in Turkey as a mediator, are examples of attempts to collaborate within the framework of western sanctions.
It shut down this avenue for Halkbank due to its alleged involvement in a multibillion-dollar scheme to evade US sanctions on Iran. To uphold its strategic autonomy, India has also sometimes resisted US pressures, for example, by allowing Iranian banks to open branches in Mumbai to ease financial flows despite US sanctions.
India had repeatedly rejected these requests from Iran, primarily due to US pressure, while also promoting the benefits of a nuclear deal to the West at the same time. As middle ground engagement with Iran became a diplomatic dance, there have been other instances between India, Iran, and the US in the last decade.
Despite having a challenging bilateral relationship with Iran, the recent US-UAE-India-Israel ‘quad’ meeting during Foreign Minister S Jaishankar’s visit to Israel raises new concerns for Tehran.
Israel’s participation in this meeting, as well as the Blue Flag Military Exercise 2021, that the country hosted was at some level a confluence of ‘friends’ in Israel’s favour, which is a direct attack on Tehran.
Iran is also being blamed for the attacks against Israeli missions in 2012 and 2021 in India, as a result of the tensions between Israel and Iran. Tehran will view a fast-paced economic and security relationship with the UAE, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) as trends New Delhi should also pursue with Iran.
Last but not least, from an Afghanistan perspective, Iran is an excellent place for India to do business because Tehran and Islamabad has an uncomfortable relationship.
Their relationship extends to border issues, including tensions between the two countries in the restive Baluchistan region. Pakistani soldiers have been killed in cross-border fire from the Iranian side several times during the fall of Kabul.
Although both blame obscure micro-regional militias and gangs for such incidents, the real issue is more fundamental and directly relates to the two neighbouring countries’ relationship.
It is perhaps a good case to consider the regional tensions further when studying Iran’s almost visceral reaction to a Taliban interim cabinet staffed heavily with Haqqani Network members negotiated by Pakistan.
As Shamkhani had noted on Twitter, failure to have a ‘responsive’ Taliban cabinet had led to Iran already losing its battle for influence in the country to Pakistan despite Amman and Qatar’s relatively friendly relations.
edited and proofread by nikita sharma
