Sender: mongiovg <mongiovg@stjohns.edu> From: mongiovg <mongiovg@stjohns.edu> To: ope-l <ope-l@galaxy.csuchico.edu>, Rakesh Bhandari <rakeshb@Stanford.EDU> X-EXP32-SerialNo: 00002203 Subject: RE: [OPE-L:6051] war Seems to me this whole mess presents a window of opportunity for the US to patch things up with Iran. The moderates in govt there strike me as more reliable agents of stability than any of the factions in Afghanistan. Even accepting that the agenda of the Bush administration is to protect access to oil, wouldn't this agenda be better served by a rapprochement with Iran than through alliances with factions that have already demonstrated their inability to stabilize Afghanistan's internal affairs? Gary, I agree that there is now a possibility of such a rational, "multiethnic" solution in Afghanistan. But whether the big powers--Pakistan, Iran and the US- -will allow it remains to be seen. Pakistan seems ready to undermine any multiethnic and hence possibly hostile govt to its North. This coupled with US' recent "cold war" like attitude towards iran suggests that such cooperation may not be realized. but i think you are right to see that a solution may now be possible,given better US-Iran relations. In fact the US may cooperate with Iran to use Afghanistan to now put pressure on Pakistan to root out the Taleban supporters in the ISI. the pipeline business may become secondary to stamping out radicalized wahhabism. and this may require massive pressure on Pakistan after the taleban has been removed, so maybe the US now makes an alliance with Iran and indeed welcomes the Northern alliance into power (by the way, the Revolutionary Association of Women in Afghanistan [RAWA] claims that the Northern Alliance may be worse than the Taleban, as Katha Pollitt underlined). Who knows? Rakesh
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