The Taliban Victory Is a Gift to Iran

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

57% : The Taliban victory in Afghanistan is a gift to Iran, nothing less.
53% : (See Thomas Jocelyn's Vital Interests newsletter on Iran and al-Qaeda here.)
52% : Senior Taliban leaders began occasional visits to Tehran to kiss the ring of the supreme leader.
51% : And that is where the mullahs of Iran and the new rulers of the so-called Emirate of Afghanistan see eye to eye, 100 percent.
47% : And both the Taliban and the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran are masters of it.
47% : And other than the inconvenient centrality of anti-Americanism to the Islamic revolution in Iran, the idea had legs.
47% : The Taliban was licensed to open a political office in Iran.
46% : As al-Qaeda dispersed in the face of U.S. attacks, very senior leaders made their home in Tehran, including Osama bin Laden's son and heir, Hamza bin Laden (later killed by the U.S.), senior al-Qaeda leader Saif al Adel, and Abu Muhammad al Masri, al-Qaeda's No. 1 until he too was assassinated inside Iran.
46% : Tehran permitted Taliban training camps inside its borders and provided "light arms, rifled-propelled grenades (RPGs), and even military training for Taliban forces on Iranian soil.
44% : (This despite the fact that, per the 9/11 Commission Report, Iran had helped funnel at least three of the hijackers into the United States.)
44% : Indeed, during what Tehran's allies describe as the potential breakthrough years of 2002-2003, Iran began providing an escape route for al-Qaeda members fleeing the U.S. war in Afghanistan.
43% : such that by the time the Arab Spring erupted in 2011, Iran was well-placed enough in Afghanistan to reportedly recruit tens of thousands of Afghan Shiites to fight on behalf of their Syrian puppet Bashar al Assad.)
41% : While Tehran may have been pleased to aid the U.S. in ousting the Taliban in Afghanistan, it had no interest in seeing a stable, pro-American government to its east.
41% : So, does Iran support the Taliban?
40% : After all, there was little love lost between the Taliban and Iran even before the September 11 attacks, and Iran had supported the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance in its resistance.
39% : Motivated by fear of a U.S. invasion and shrewd realism, Tehran did indeed appear to side with the United States against the perpetrators of that terrible attack.
36% : Does Iran arm the Taliban?
36% : Does Iran like the Taliban?
35% : The confusion began in the wake of 9/11, when Tehran proffered assistance to the United States in overthrowing the Taliban.
35% : Others explained that Iran was only providing safe haven on the condition that al-Qaeda wouldn't plan attacks from Iranian soil.
33% : And reporting last year revealed that Iran was paying the Taliban bounties to kill American troops in Afghanistan.

*Our bias meter rating uses data science including sentiment analysis, machine learning and our proprietary algorithm for determining biases in news articles. Bias scores are on a scale of -100% to 100% with higher negative scores being more liberal and higher positive scores being more conservative, and 0% being neutral. The rating is an independent analysis and is not affiliated nor sponsored by the news source or any other organization.