Arming The Taliban

In the annals of unlikely bedfellows there are always surprises.  The Shia-Muslim ayatollahs of Iran have little in common with their Sunni Taliban counterparts, but they do both share an incendiary hatred of the West, of the United States in particular and by extension and for a variety of reasons, the State of Israel.  The true enemy is that which worships a deity other than Allah.  And linking the all-powerful spirit of the sole god in existence to the Abrahamic tradition is merely a pretext that has no place in the reality of jihad.

The struggle for supremacy between Sunni and Shia is a family affair, even if it is capable of consuming those who embroil themselves in its settlement into a battle as bitter and rancidly bloodthirsty as the one that takes centre stage uniting sectarian foes against a threat to Islamic domination over lesser faiths.  As insulting to Islam are the false faiths within its sphere, the reality of infidel and Zionist threats take precedence.

Which is ample reason for the Islamic Republic of Iran to increase its helpfulness to the Taliban in support of that group's war against the foreign invaders of Afghanistan.  This represents, quite simply, a case of neighbour helping neighbour.  Disregarding those times when neighbour assaults neighbour.

One must make a knowledgeable distinction between family disagreements settled in the timelessly honoured way of battle-to-the-death.  And the equally heroic action of undertaking all means at one's violent disposal to wrest a foreign enemy of Islam from their obvious determination to curtail and disrupt Islam's march to conquest, obliterating them from life in the process.

So, in reflection of nobility of intention and a suspension of hostilities between sectarian views of the authentic purity of historic Islam, Iran is prepared to supply surface-to-air missiles to the Taliban.  Thus placing in peril, according to detected purpose, the "strategic partnership" signed in good faith between Afghanistan and the United States.

In thus arming the Taliban, clearly Iran is also expanding her circle of military support should matters progress as they may, in a final stand-off between the Republic and the United States of America, over Iran's nuclear program - to the point where a joint attack is launched by America and its spawn, the State of Israel.

A Taliban-led Afghanistan would be honour-bound to reciprocate in kind, if supplied with advanced weaponry to ensure it has the balance of strength and power over the regular Afghan forces with the departure of NATO forces.  Thus more or less replacing the reliance that Iran had placed on Syria coming to its aid, alongside Lebanon's Hezbollah.

Iran invited a member of the Taliban's ruling council to set up office in the eastern Iranian city of Zahedan, followed by discussions between Iran's Quds Force Revolutionary Guard Corps and senior Taliban, respecting the transfer of surface-to-air missiles and training for the Taliban in their use.  The murderous enmity between Shiite Iran and Sunni Taliban has evaporated.

Necessity is often the mother of contrition.  For its part, NATO has always contended that Iran has been involved in providing small arms and training to the Taliban, although more attention was always given to the more obvious fact that the Taliban received most of its assistance and greater quantities of aid from Pakistan's military.

But even this unusual turn of events is nuanced, because this is, of course the Middle East.  And another facet of these alliances and misalliances, of intrigues and mysteries, is that complications set in reflecting the very same central issue of sectarian dysfunction.  For the Taliban receives much funding from Gulf States, adversaries of Shiism and Iran.  Which they might very well lose, in response.

No other area of the world hosts nations and their politics that are quite so convoluted and mind-and-spirit-meandering resulting in impasses and threats and gory massacres as the Middle East.