Iran, US take their fight to Afghanistan

[Flabbergasted]

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/ID21Ak01.html

Iran, US take their fight to Afghanistan
By M K Bhadrakumar

Marine General Peter Pace, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, is not beyond making gaffes. When the clever editors of the Chicago Tribune recently prompted him to discuss his former commander-in-chief Bill Clinton's "Don't ask, don't tell" policy on homosexuality among US servicemen, Pace responded that homosexuality was as "immoral" as adultery.

Senator Hillary Clinton, among others, promptly objected. For a week, it seemed Pace elbowed out the killing fields of Iraq from the great American debate.

Therefore, it might seem at first glance Pace was making a ridiculous gaffe on Tuesday when he implied Iran could be arming the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan. Pace told reporters in Washington, "We know there are munitions that were made in Iran that are in Iraq and Afghanistan. Either the leadership in that country knows what their armed forces are doing, or that they don't know. And in either case, that's a problem." Pace added that Iranian-made mortars and C-4 explosives were intercepted in Kandahar.

But it is well known in the Afghan bazaar that the country is awash with Iranian weapons that were supplied to Northern Alliance groups during the anti-Taliban resistance in the late 1990s. The London-based Institute for War and Peace Reporting has been monitoring erstwhile Northern Alliance groups based in the north of Afghanistan clandestinely selling their stockpiles of weapons to the Taliban. A north-south corridor of arms smuggling seems to be in place. North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) contingents have independently confirmed such smuggling.

There was nothing new about weapons with Iranian markings being found in Kandahar. Was Pace making another gaffe? No, Pace cannot be unaware of the lay of the land in the Afghan war zone. He must be a good soldier to hold such high office. But, as Bertolt Brecht wrote in his famous play The Caucasian Chalk Circle, "A good soldier has his heart and soul in it. When he receives an order, he gets a hard-on, and when he drives his lance into the enemy's guts, he comes."

Pace was speaking on orders. No sooner had he spoken than three senior officials of the George W Bush administration took over - Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher and White House spokeswoman Dana Perino.