So maybe you didn't quite believe me when I claimed Iran was assisting Al Qaida in Iraq. Perhaps you just don't trust Tony Blair and John McCain, afterall, they may just be justifying decisions or attempting to rewrite history. Iran would never support a Salafist/Wahhabist/jihadist (is that even a word) organization whose stated purpose is to eventually defeat/convert Shia muslims.
Maybe this will sway your opinion. It's an article on the Long War Journal discussing the links between Iran and the Taliban. Yeah, that Taliban. The former rulers of Afghanistan who are both Salafist and essentially became the political wing of Al Qaida...although I admit that is likely a bit of a simplification.
Not only do the Afghan police in the southwest of Afghanistan point to Iran as a source of support for the Taliban and Al Qaida but a recently captured Taliban leader from that part of Afghanistan claims he was recruited as well as trained in Iran by Iranian Qods Force (Iranian special forces).
My hope is that Iran is only backing the Taliban in order to keep us busy in Afghanistan and therefore unable to think about invading Iran. I highly doubt that Iran wishes a return of the Taliban to power in Afghanistan and are likely only assisting them just enough to be a pain in the ass to US forces but not enough to threaten the Afghan government, much like Iran's probable support to Al Qaida in Iraq.
I just wish this would come back to bite Iran, but that seems unlikely to me.
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