Iran is participating in the Afghan contact group talks in Rome. There is precedent for this: Iran participated in the Bonn talks that created a new Afghan government in 2001–to good effect, I’m told. That might have been the beginning of a beautiful friendship, but the Bush Administration was more interested in constructing an Axis of Evil than a positive relationship with the Islamic Republic…and the Islamic Republic took a turn for the dreadful when Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was “elected” President in 2005.
In fact, the U.S. and Iran have common interests in Afghanistan–especially when it comes to staunching the drug trade, which has ravaged Iran (which reportedly has the highest rate of heroin addiction in the world). Iran nearly went to war with the Taliban government in 1999.
There is no linkage between these talks and issue #1, Iran’s nuclear program…but, if American and Iranian negotiators are in the same room, talking, and perhaps cooperating, on an issue of mutual interest, who knows what might come next? Indeed, given the economic pressure that the UN sanctions regime has imposed, I wouldn’t be surprised if a revival of the nuclear talks weren’t around the corner as well.
