Iran Invades Afghanistan

Iran had problems with the Taliban regime because they attacked shia Muslims and Iranian diplomats. They wanted to invade but the US and UN stopped them.

What if Bill Clinton was smart and had the Iranians go into Afghanistan? What would the reaction be among radical Muslims, like Osama bin Laden, as the two Islamic theocratic regimes go at each other? Would the 9/11 attacks still occur?
 
Perhaps Pakistan and Iran could 'divide' Afghanistan between them since Pakistan was the major player in Afghanistan in the 90s.
 
Shiites are around 20%, half of those are Hazara. Any divide of the country between just Iran and Pakistan (like Shiites to Iran, Sunnis to Pakistan, or Dari speakers and Hazaras to Iran and Pashtuns to Pakistan) is not viable in my opinion.

Afghanistan_ethnic_map_divisions.jpg
 
When I say 'divide' I mean by ISI and SAVAMA each having spheres in influence where they control the factions for their own benefit. ISI in particular cultivated Afghani factions etc as a way of giving Pakistan strategic depth in the event of a conventional war with India. If this happened, and in a considerable way it did with Pakistan, then there is nothing anyone could or would do about it, indeed it would probably be fantastic as far as the rest of the world is concerned.
 
Aktarian did a really interesting scenario based on this a few years ago. The Iranians seemed initially to be doing very well, but then the Pakistani Air Force intervened and I don't think he ever got beyond that.
 
Clinton might look the other way, but the Republicans would attack him for it.
Most other nations (except the Taliban's allies) would ignore it.
 
Clinton might look the other way, but the Republicans would attack him for it.

Why would they attack him for it? The Republicans were the anti-war, isolationist party in the 1990's. They would have been doing everything possible to keep Clinton from interfering.
 

pnyckqx

Banned
there is a real dispute of Iran with Afghanistan about Drugs !
most of of the Afghan civilwar is financed drug cultivation (mostly Opium and canabis)
wat also exported to Iran were the drug abuse is affecting 11 million iranians!
that very good reasion/excuse to invade Afghanistan...

source:
http://www.cfr.org/publication/11457/
http://www.ams.ac.ir/AIM/0253/0253184.htm
Michael, this would not have been true during the Clinton Administration or during the reign of the Taliban Government in Afghanistan. When they were ruling, the Taliban cracked down hard on the cultivation of opium. Your own source makes note of this fact.

It was after the Taliban government fell that they had to resort to opium cultivation for funding of operations.

On the other hand, I can't imagine that a Shiite Iran would be all that happy with the Taliban government hosting al Qaeda operatives who have historically been a thorn in the side of Iran.

This is certainly a case where the US could have made common cause with Iran, and possibly not gotten involved with mission creep that is endemic to many of our military interventions as of late.
 
Why would they attack him for it? The Republicans were the anti-war, isolationist party in the 1990's. They would have been doing everything possible to keep Clinton from interfering.

True. I had forgotten that. However, given the demonization of Iran from 1979 on, Republicans could easily target Clinton over that. And, around that time, the Taliban had a lobbyist named Lalia Helms, niece of ex-CIA director Richard Helms.
 
Iran had problems with the Taliban regime because they attacked shia Muslims and Iranian diplomats. They wanted to invade but the US and UN stopped them.

What if Bill Clinton was smart and had the Iranians go into Afghanistan? What would the reaction be among radical Muslims, like Osama bin Laden, as the two Islamic theocratic regimes go at each other? Would the 9/11 attacks still occur?

What was the exact date of this?

During the war against the Russians the US was allied "covertly" with the Afganis and Iran has been the bad guy in the region for the US since the Hostage Crisis.

I think the gut response in the US would be sympathy with Afganistan. Prossibly leading to, again covert aid, sanctions or blockage of Iraninan ports, perhaps even more escalation.
 
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