Iran Invaded Afghanistan?

It might kick-start a larger conflict. Iran vs Afghanistan could spread to Pakistan if Islamabad feels its allies in Kabul are threatened, and if Iran appears to be close to controlling the country Pakistan may decide to intervene militarily. India will get really nervous if Pakistan is on the move and there might be real problems if Iran and Pakistan come to blows.

So we might see Iran+India+Russia+Sunni Volunteers on one side, and China+Pakistan+the US on another?

It's becoming less interesting:rolleyes:

Can we have Iran installing a puppet regime in Afghanistan, which is unpopular but stable, with the grudging approval of its neighbors?
 
So we might see Iran+India+Russia+Sunni Volunteers on one side, and China+Pakistan+the US on another?

It's becoming less interesting:rolleyes:

Can we have Iran installing a puppet regime in Afghanistan, which is unpopular but stable, with the grudging approval of its neighbors?

The United States is probably going to stay out of this one.
 
The United States is probably going to stay out of this one.

That's my thought. Much like Iran-Iraq the initial US reaction will be "shame they can't both lose" followed by trying to prevent the conflict from messing with regional balance of power too much. If Pakistan supporting the Taliban creates issues with India you would probably see the US put pressure on Pakistan to prevent a possibly nuclear Indo-Pak war. Only way the US gets directly involved is if the conflict starts spilling over Tanker War style.
 
It might kick-start a larger conflict. Iran vs Afghanistan could spread to Pakistan if Islamabad feels its allies in Kabul are threatened, and if Iran appears to be close to controlling the country Pakistan may decide to intervene militarily. India will get really nervous if Pakistan is on the move and there might be real problems if Iran and Pakistan come to blows.

Pakistan does not need to intervene militarily, and likely doesn't want to.

No, this is an invasion of Afghanistan by a nation that is about to invoke a lot of anger from the Afghan populace. Iran is a conscript army, and doesn't have any remarkable reputation for sensitivity towards occupied populations or good behavior towards civilians. This isn't so much me subscribing to the entirely unfounded and unfair stereotype of Iranians as being drooling, screeching fanatics but more the fact that an ill-trained conscript force with little real experience (and in this case likely no interest) with the nuts and bolts of winning over an occupied population is more likely to screw up than not.

Pakistan will view this as a threat to them, it is inevitable. For Pakistan, the Taliban are an indispensable asset because they keep Afghanistan relatively stable. The time Afghanistan was not stable was during the Soviet invasion, Pakistan suffered a horrendous refugee crisis into the millions from fleeing Afghan refugees that contributed in part to the lawless situation that still pervades the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas in the northwest of Pakistan.

I see this going in Pakistan's favor, Iran is likely to win a conventional victory against the Taliban, but it is unlikely that they will achieve the same sort of decapitating strike against them as the US did in 2001. The Taliban will rally the Afghan masses against the foreign invader, and there is even the possibility that local proxies might stay away from the Iranians, because nobody wants to be seen as another Najibullah who dances to the tune of a foreign country. Iran will likely duck out after a while, and Pakistan will use the situation to step in and effectively cement their influence and make the Afghan government a Pakistani satellite. Pakistan wins big-time, but if anything like September 11th happens, things will get really awkward really fast.
 
Just came to my mind: Mohammad "Mister-Nice-Guy" Khatami was not someone reckless enough to invade another country.

Geopolitical consideration matters, but it's still the leader's personality that actually determines how things are going.

So Khatami has to be removed somehow for the invasion to take place.

On the other hand, a political circumstance so extreme that even the president is forced out would definitely affect how the war goes on.

I know very little about Iranian internal dynamics at that time, does anyone know who would replace Khatami?

Regards

Chuan
 
US support of the side of Afghanistan might butterfly 9/11 away.

Indeed, Bin Laden will be more concerned about the pressing Iranian assault on innocent Sunni Muslims than he will on making good on his plans for a big strike against the US. The US is unlikely to get majorly involved aside from maybe using Pakistan as an intermediary to slide arms to the Taliban. This could have some interesting effects on Afghanistan: an invasion will likely unite the country, it might even prompt normally irreconcilable groups like Ahmad Shah Massoud and his crowd to make a truce with the Taliban, I certainly can't see Massoud being the type to collaborate with the Iranians, who are going to have plenty of their own ulterior motives.

What happens with Afghanistan will be an interesting thing to see. Whether it turns into a basket case that vomits refugees into all neighboring countries like it did during the Soviet invasion or whether it winds up allowing the Taliban to unite the country. It's certainly an intriguing trade: uniting the country, albeit under the extremist Islamic rule of the Taliban.

Sunnis won't volunteer to fight on the Iranian side, as the Iranians themselves are Shiites and generally religious fanatics on opposite sides of the aisle don't tend to get along, and in this case they have no reason to.
 
How might this affect internal Iranian politics? On the one hand a tough war in Afghanistan might increase discontent with the regime and increase support for the reformers. On the other hand, Khatami is president at the time and he was a reformer so initially we might see a backlash against him and his supporters.
 

PhilippeO

Banned
Sunnis won't volunteer to fight on the Iranian side, as the Iranians themselves are Shiites and generally religious fanatics on opposite sides of the aisle don't tend to get along, and in this case they have no reason to.

Not always. in this case ethnic and language might triumph religious consideration. Dari and Tajik speaker might prefer their Iranian cousin rather than Taliban. resident of Herat, who has cultural and historical ties with Iran also might support Iranian.

so Hazaras Shias, Tajiks, Herat citizens, and Dari speakers might support iranian
 
There are some inaccurate assumptions in this thread.

There really is not a 'united' Afghanistan that would come together to fight the Iranian invasion at this point. Even the Afghan resistance against the Soviets was in no way a unified, national movement.

Iran had been supporting some of the militias which would form the Northern Alliance, and continued to do so, which is why their diplomats were in Mazar-i-Sharif.

The Taliban was roughly 25,000 soldiers, the State Dept. estimated (in either 96 or 98), but only 15,000 were Afghans. The rest were foreign volunteers.

There were an estimated, at any time, 28,000 Pakistani nationals fighting in the Afghan Civil War. Only 8,000 were volunteers from madrasas. The other 20,000 were soliders under the control of then Cheif of Arny Staff Pervez Musharraf. In total, an estimated 80,000 to 100,000 Pakistanis trained and fought in Afghanistan.

If Iran is intervening in '98, they will be attacking Pakistani Army units, unless they withdrawl ASAP.

First off, this will come as a surprise to the majority of Pakistan, who did not know military units were actively serving; even the parents of those who died did not know.

Second, how will Pakistan respond to Iran attacking their units?

Pakistan certainly has nuclear capabilities, but would they use it? And then India? The spark of the Kargil War, Operation Badr, was already underway. What about Saudi Arabia?

I see a couple scenarios -

1) Iran invades, Pakistan withdraws convential forces but still supports Taliban and AQ after withdrawl. Saudi Arabia and other Arab states continue to fund them as well. Iran does well conventionally but gets bogged down in guerilla warfare.

2) Iran invades, 'happens' to directly strike Pakistani formations, they duke it out conventionally in Afghanistan. It is up in there air from there.

Do we see an earlier coup in Pakistan?

I have a hard time seeing Saudi Arabia or any of the other Gulf States getting directly involved in the combat, although support may be given.

But, the faultlines along roughly the Sunni/Shia split means it could get globally messy fast.

The US in all honesty has no reason not to back the Saudi/Pakistani efforts. It may be strange to think of a world where the US is in/directly supporting AQ, but if it becomes more of an anti-Shia effort, then the US kind of has no reason not too.
 
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Cyan

Banned
Hmm...

What if Iran simply said that this is the final straw to the continued regional nutjob instability and its an affront to the Ayatollah and anyone who has been looking at that area for the past 30 years. Citing this they open negotiations with all former SSR's in the area, offering wide scale economic assistance for the formation of a single nation, Including Afghanistan...

US quietly supports this which translates into a much better mid-east peace. Officially neutral. Russia is in no position to argue at this point and China is for any regional consolidation and trade easing.

So as the organization forms and is starting to look into regional government. Afghanistan starts to break apart as more local tribes want an actual central state that respects all tribes, instead of constant warfare between small tribes with 1 local strong tribe as is the case in crowded tribal lands.

As the break-up worsens, Iran declares war on the Official state of Afghanistan. Walks in, watches the region essentially disband and see the formation of a central super rich state capital with the rest being tribal land. Central Capital can be something like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samarkand With centralized power and willing participation and external support, area grows to a left leaning but economically open "small china" that is the regional melting pot of ideas between China and Russia.

Area is favored and less oil travel is done by the very far east making escalations expensive for all parties leading to a much calmer 21st century.

Edit: Maybe it take 3-5 years and 10-20 SUPER lucrative long term contracts spread out over the region to convince the nations to form an EU style superstate. Hold that together for long enough (which would be the same challenge as any other nation in the world faces) and you got yourself a country.

Maybe agree to fix for free all the regional dryness caused by the over-irrigation. Then just fund all eco-restoration projects that are on hold for the area including all rain increase projects that have little to no flooding risk. But on the condition that the 2 countries sign free-trade free-travel joint-defense ETC contracts with one another that are written into the constitution or some such. :)
 
This seems a little far-fetched to me.

Besides the fact that Afghanistan by itself is hardly a unified entity, Iran does not have a free hand in the region. Pakistan and the Gulf States would be instantly attempting to block any move like this.
 
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