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Axis of Evil
Iran shuts down Hekmatyar
2002-02-10
  • Iranian authorities have closed down the offices of dissident Afghan guerrilla leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar in a move seen as trying to prove Tehran's goodwill toward the interim government in Afghanistan. Newspapers said the strongly anti-American Hekmatyar had acted against Iranian national security. Iran vehemently denies U.S. charges it is trying to destabilize the fragile peace in Afghanistan by arming groups hostile to Hamid Karzai's interim administration. "Iran decided to close down Hekmatyar's offices because he did not consider the country's security policy," the official Iran newspaper quoted police chief Hossein Zare-Sefat as saying. "It's a green light to the world and the Americans that shows Iran's foreign policy is based on dialogue and friendship," Tehran University politics lecturer Hamidreza Jalaipour said.
    A little more light makes its way through the murk of Iranian policy. Not only are they split between their own wimpish moderates and the raving religious hard-liners, they've also been sheltering Hekmatyar for a few years. Hekmatyar isn't so much anti-American as out for the main chance, which involves personal power for himself, regardless of the price to anyone else. He commands a network of proxies and allies within Afghanistan and it's more likely they, rather than the moderate end of the government or - at least without plausible deniability - the ayatollahs, who are working actively to destabilize Afghanistan. The Iranian heirarchy's denials could even be sincere, since Hekmatyar's a very small frog in the Persian pond.
    • Posted by:Fred Pruitt

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