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20 years ago: Iran Almost Invaded Afghanistan in 1998

Should Iran have occupied Herat in 1998 as a warning and retaliation against the Taliban?


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Totally remember those days. National sentiments were running high and if the government decided to attack they would have the support of all Iranians.

But I think it was a good decision not to attack. I know Iranians f-4s attacked some of Taliban's posts inside Afghanistan but that was it.

It is never a good idea to fight with a neighbour. You may win the war but you will lose the good will of your neighbor for a very long time if not for ever.

Few years ago, irgc commander admitted that it was the Supreme leader who stopped their invasion plan.
Very wise decision.
 
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It is never a good idea to fight with a neighbour. You may win the war but you will lose the good will of your neighbor for a very long time if not for ever.
Iraq invaded Iran and Iran still opposed the US invasion of Saddam's regime.

Plenty of Afghans are Shia.
Less than 20% are shia, 80% Sunni
 
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Well ,there are always a lot hot headed elements in all militaries that must controlled by more level headed persons.
Attacking Afghanistan just after the 8 year war with Iraq was wrong in many aspect . our army were tired our industry were tired we could not produce our ammunition .

But to the guys who say Afghanistan can't be tamed well the reality is that you can very easily control Afghanistan if you want , opium is the fuel of insurgency in Afghanistan if you just napalm all the popy fields you detect you'll break the back of all the warlords there . but you need to want to pacify Afghanistan . if what you want is creating problem for the region then what's the point of doing so its better to encourage the opium trade
 
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Whilst the Iranian military is much more competent, I agree. The conflict would have not turned out well, but I have a feeling you guys could have done a better job than NATO when it comes to reconciling with the Afghans since so many of them are ethnic Persians.
Not really. There are not many 'ethnic Persians' in Afghanistan, just some in a few places like Herat and Balkh. Being a Persian-speaker is not the same as being Persian. Being Tajik is not necessarily the same as being Persian either.
Totally remember those days. National sentiments were running high and if the government decided to attack they would have the support of all Iranians.

But I think it was a good decision not to attack. I know Iranians f-4s attacked some of Taliban's posts inside Afghanistan but that was it.

It is never a good idea to fight with a neighbour. You may win the war but you will lose the good will of your neighbor for a very long time if not for ever.


Very wise decision.
Iran wouldnt have been fighting a neighbour though. Iran would have been fighting alongside our neighbour against a terrorist movement.

The internationally recognized President of Afghanistan at that time was Rabbani. Only Pakistan and Saudi Arabia recognized the Taliban regime in 1998, followed by the UAE a bit later.

The people of Herat, Balkh, Mazar-e Sharif, Kabul etc did not choose to live under Taliban rule. Iran actually played a significant role to liberate Herat from the Taliban 2001 and put Ismail Khan back in charge there when it was possible they could have done that back in 1998.
 
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very good decision.talibans are reckless.it was a mistake to kill iranian diplomats.nobody ever wins in afghanistan.problem is there are so many talibans.you kill one,another will hit you.they have seen bombs,missiles everything.american invasion looked like to be a success only in the beginning but than,they lost faith.you can't win against taliban.best thing is truce.
 
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“...Naseerullah Babaar, a former Pakistani general and a Taliban founder, predicted doom for Tehran.....”

It seems Pakistan’s love for the Taliban and terrorist groups overall runs deep into the core of their security apparatus.

This is exactly why Pakistan wasn’t consulted on Osama raid by the US.

very good decision.talibans are reckless.it was a mistake to kill iranian diplomats.nobody ever wins in afghanistan.problem is there are so many talibans.you kill one,another will hit you.they have seen bombs,missiles everything.american invasion looked like to be a success only in the beginning but than,they lost faith.you can't win against taliban.best thing is truce.

Nonsense.

ISIS at its peak had more power than Taliban can ever dream of, but now they are fleeing into the desert.

Soviet Union invasion of Afghanistan was to prevent the fall of the Afghan government where the US was supplying the Taliban with money, weapons, and intel.

Lastly, Soviet Union military tactics were developed to fight against developed militaries not asymmetric warfare.

The US demolished the Taliban in the 2001 invasion. However, Pakistan accepted the Taliban with open arms and allowed them to regroup and provide refuge to senior leadership.

If pakistan at the same time launched a large scale operation to eliminate Taliban infilitrating its borders, the Taliban would be largely ineffective force today.

The US largely pulled out of Afghanistan due to domestic politics and the fact Afghanistan lacks any true value to the US. They could careless at this point if it turns into a Libya scenario. Their mission was to eliminate senior Al-Queda leadership and kill OBL, which they did.
 
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“...Naseerullah Babaar, a former Pakistani general and a Taliban founder, predicted doom for Tehran.....”

It seems Pakistan’s love for the Taliban and terrorist groups overall runs deep into the core of their security apparatus.

This is exactly why Pakistan wasn’t consulted on Osama raid by the US.



Nonsense.

ISIS at its peak had more power than Taliban can ever dream of, but now they are fleeing into the desert.

Soviet Union invasion of Afghanistan was to prevent the fall of the Afghan government where the US was supplying the Taliban with money, weapons, and intel.

Lastly, Soviet Union military tactics were developed to fight against developed militaries not asymmetric warfare.

The US demolished the Taliban in the 2001 invasion. However, Pakistan accepted the Taliban with open arms and allowed them to regroup and provide refuge to senior leadership.

If pakistan at the same time launched a large scale operation to eliminate Taliban infilitrating its borders, the Taliban would be largely ineffective force today.

The US largely pulled out of Afghanistan due to domestic politics and the fact Afghanistan lacks any true value to the US. They could careless at this point if it turns into a Libya scenario. Their mission was to eliminate senior Al-Queda leadership and kill OBL, which they did.

so according to you,americans have won back in 2001? there is a fact in this story.not all talibans flee inside pakistan in 2001 and according to your claim,if taliban really lives in pakistan than why are you losing afghan war? why donald trump wanted to pull out all american military personnel? i don't want to talk about soviet union.it is long gone.even in 2001, you have failed to divert attacks on american army.your logic of all talibans inside pakistan is not a real scenerio.americans are the one who hosted taliban in washington during soviet era.we did your dirty work against soviets.than you wanted to take care it by yourself but you are badly failed.actually pakistani local tribes in waziristan shares resemblance with afghan taliban so according to your claim,even those pakistani citizens are taliban.it's like face saving.pakistan have told you several times to accept defeat in afghanistan.you are accepting it slowly.recent discussions of taliban with american delegation is a sign of weakness from the americans and not from the talibans.as i have said earlier,you can bomb them,fire missiles but they hit you again.even in 2001,american invaded afghanistan using air force first than military involvement and even in 2009, you weren't in a situation to announce success of this operation.there were some places in 2001 which were under taliban control.now they have 40% afghanistan.from 2001 to till date,several thousand american military personnel died.this shows that your army is fed up and want to exit peacefully without any insult.you have failed miserably.
 
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so according to you,americans have won back in 2001? there is a fact in this story.not all talibans flee inside pakistan in 2001 and according to your claim,if taliban really lives in pakistan than why are you losing afghan war? why donald trump wanted to pull out all american military personnel? i don't want to talk about soviet union.it is long gone.even in 2001, you have failed to divert attacks on american army.your logic of all talibans inside pakistan is not a real scenerio.americans are the one who hosted taliban in washington during soviet era.we did your dirty work against soviets.than you wanted to take care it by yourself but you are badly failed.actually pakistani local tribes in waziristan shares resemblance with afghan taliban so according to your claim,even those pakistani citizens are taliban.it's like face saving.pakistan have told you several times to accept defeat in afghanistan.you are accepting it slowly.recent discussions of taliban with american delegation is a sign of weakness from the americans and not from the talibans.as i have said earlier,you can bomb them,fire missiles but they hit you again.even in 2001,american invaded afghanistan using air force first than military involvement and even in 2009, you weren't in a situation to announce success of this operation.there were some places in 2001 which were under taliban control.now they have 40% afghanistan.from 2001 to till date,several thousand american military personnel died.this shows that your army is fed up and want to exit peacefully without any insult.you have failed miserably.

First of all stop assuming because I bring logic to a conversation I am automatically a US military supporter. I am Iranian you moron.

2nd I know you didn’t bother to learn the English language, but I said Pakistan harbored top al queda and Taliban leaders which is true unless you live on a different planet (which most Pakistan users on here do). With the US steamrolling Taliban in 2001 bin laden and large amounts of Taliban and al queda leadership fled through torra borra mountains into Pakistan.

I mean later Bin laden himself was killed while living next to a major Pakistan military school. And yes Pakistan warlords are terrorists and terrorist sympathizers. Northern Pakistan at one point was Taliban 2.0 and even Pakistan military bases were under constant Insurgent attacks.

After the “surge” was over in iraq and Afghanistan, the US and NATO withdrew most of their troops and relied on the afghan army to keep control of their country.

Trust me no one (not Iran nor Pakistan) wants that dump known as Afghanistan whose main export is opium and drugs. US was going to leave Afghanistan eventually, just like it left Libya.

But let’s not kid ourselves, if US wanted to they could deploy 150,000 troops and move province by province and eliminate Taliban. Just look what Iraq did to ISIS when ISIS had control of nearly half of Iraq. ISIS had way more skilled fighters than a bunch of overweight Pashtuns with ak 47s.

The issue with Afghanistan is, no one wants it and no wants to put troops to fight in a country that holds very little strategic gains for the US (other than encircling iran with military bases).

So while it’s important to point out US defeats in the region (Iraq, Yemen, Syria). I don’t consider Afghanistan a total defeat for the US since they accomplished the bulk of their objectives. US was never going to permantely occupy Afghanistan, it simply is not an important country. If the Afghan army cannot hold its ground after 18 years, then that’s not the US job to be the Afghan army.
 
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Americans cannot inavde Afghanistan? Where have you been for the past 17 years? :blink:

"The graveyard of empires cannot be invaded" :omghaha:
Are you some idiot or just have poor command in English language?
I advise you to keep persian to english dictionary all the time with you specially when you log and post in this forum.Because you do not understand the true meanings and contexts of english language apparently.
Invasion is only successful when you are able to control and get stable in the and you invaded.US is just running here and there in frustration for the past 17 years and in 2014 pulled out most of the troops in retreat.
Or you may be you are not living in this world or don,t watch too many news,tv or dont read history at all.
he said cannot "control" - and he is 100% correct. The US have been stuck there for 17 years, trying desperately to find an exit strategy and wasting over $1 trillion (still today $50 billion per year!) to defeat the Taliban, only for the Taliban now to re-emerge and the US are forced to even negotiate with them!

25,000 US soldiers killed/injured and over $1 trillion of US taxpayer money wasted to end up being forced to negotiate with the Taliban, that's what you call a graveyard.

He said "invade and control" - do you understand the word 'and'?
Good posts and we need more sane iranian people like you on this forum.
 
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We could reoccupy the entire Afghanistan but it would cost a lot of money and resources. We could easily genocide the harami no problems.......same with Azerbaijan or Turkmenistan........ These were all part of our country.......however, the times of occupying jahel sunni people are long gone. We could still genocide.......but its not worth it.....let the bastards live and continue to kill each other.

Nobody should doubt our ability to kill millions if we dog on want to do it.....plenty of very recent proof. Iran is not interested in doing the unthinkable unless it threatens us.
 
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We could reoccupy the entire Afghanistan but it would cost a lot of money and resources. We could easily genocide the harami no problems.......same with Azerbaijan or Turkmenistan........ These were all part of our country.......however, the times of occupying jahel sunni people are long gone. We could still genocide.......but its not worth it.....let the bastards live and continue to kill each other.

Nobody should doubt our ability to kill millions if we dog on want to do it.....plenty of very recent proof. Iran is not interested in doing the unthinkable unless it threatens us.
Why don't you try after US leaves?
 
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Had that happened would there be a 9/11? Iraq, Syria, Yemen or Pakistan suffering from terrorism.
 
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