Afghan security forces fleeing towards Iran

[TheImmortal]

The taliban are the natural shrub of the a large portion of afghan lands. In the 90s Iran was extremely weak and vulnerable. with saddam on the west flank, the west with no rivals wanting Iran dead, and a lawless afghanistan.

under those circumstances, some saudi supported taliban elements attackd Iranian interests. Today Iran is the undisputed king of the region. It has a ready made afghan loyal army by the name of fatemyoon.

and the taliban is extremely weak, and the last thing they want is to piss Iran off. I doubt the taliban is going to be so dumb to attack Iran. and if they do try, Iran is more then ready to teach them a devastating lesson this time around...

Iran has certainly come to some kind of understanding with the taliban, while keeping a plan B/C ready incase.. Iran is definitly going to carve some sort of zone of influence out of western afghanistan to protect its interets if i were to guess...

You cannot defeat the Taliban. US killed tens of thousands of them, what ended up happening?

Short of nuking Afghanistan and turning into inhabitable wasteland, you cannot defeat the Tabilian just like you cannot defeat the Houthis in Yemen. You cannot defeat a local population that that has nothing To lose.

Eventually the Taliban would re organize and resupply it could take 10 years it could take 30 years.

So best Iran can do is wipe out a few generations of Taliban like the US did and support the Shiite Afghanis to increase their power over Taliban.

The one thing Iran can do better than US by a substantial margin is train foreign legions to fight asymmetric warfare. US struggles to train because they teach conventional warfare (and poorly at that) to soldiers who have no loyalty.

But still at the end of the day, Taliban is part of Afghan society same way Kurds are part of Iran and Turkey and Iraq.

 

[Titanium100]

You cannot defeat the Taliban. US killed tens of thousands of them, what ended up happening?

Short of nuking Afghanistan and turning into inhabitable wasteland, you cannot defeat the Tabilian just like you cannot defeat the Houthis in Yemen. You cannot defeat a local population that that has nothing To lose.

Eventually the Taliban would re organize and resupply it could take 10 years it could take 30 years.

So best Iran can do is wipe out a few generations of Taliban like the US did and support the Shiite Afghanis to increase their power over Taliban.

The one thing Iran can do better than US by a substantial margin is train foreign legions to fight asymmetric warfare. US struggles to train because they teach conventional warfare (and poorly at that) to soldiers who have no loyalty.

But still at the end of the day, Taliban is part of Afghan society same way Kurds are part of Iran and Turkey and Iraq.

Taliban is like the ice berg from titanic you only see the tip but what lays below is as large as a mountain. Hence why the British, Soviets and The US were defeated but times have now changed and Talibans has allies much stronger ally. It would be like a repeat of what ended the Safavid once again by miscalculating the Pashtuns who eventually sacked the Safavids entirely. Taliban has atleast 100m supporters inside Pakistan and even the state. Any misplaced distrust and hosilities could lead to Iran's eventful demise there are consequences for every decision taken in life and.. We always get options. every flash point opens many doors.

By the way Taliban is not any less dangerous to Iran than all the states in central asia who pose more potential denger and something could change their minds overnight making them way more dengerous or even Pakistan herself is 1000 times more dengerous than Taliban if leadership and governing could change overnight what I am trying to tell you here is since you assume all the Sunnis are potential existential threat in that case taliban is no less threat to Iran than Turkemenistan, Turkey, Pakistan and all the others surrounding iran and she is in the middle in all of that.. Taliban don't really seek the demise of Iran as they have other things on their minds like re-building themselves up but any sort of miscalculation between the two could lead to much bigger war than Iran would like in this given time.. it won't be Asymmetric because it will be viewed as breach of trust by even the forces backing Taliban including pakistan. It only leads to one road which is an eventual showdown and it will be existential level when people so near each other from a hands length betray each others trust between them.. Iran's only goodwill with it's neighbours is that trust but if it were to be betrayed it gives Pakistan and others no other choice but to go eastwards. What I am trying to say is if you see the world from your view there is 1.5b danger and majority of them in Iran's neighbourhood you get my drift and bordering her.. It will be a never ending paranoia.

By the way Houthis are not unbeatable and far from it. They are facing an alternative mirror of themselves same types of tribes sitting in a stelemate against each other. They can't really overrun the opposite side but imho in the long run the opposite tribes will be able to overrun them it if it just continued without ceasefire because something has to eventually give and they have more resources and better suited for the long game.

 

[Genghis khan1]

US struggles to train because they teach conventional warfare (and poorly at that) to soldiers who have no loyalty.

US is the master of Counterinsurgency (COIN) strategy. Whole world send their trainers or ask for mutual training to learn from the US. Marsoc trainers were in Pakistan to train PA units in unit level unconventional warfare tactics. Before, PA was walking into Tribal area, G3 sling to shoulder Rambo style and getting butchered. There was lit to no concept of point, aim, cover, concealment, shoot- scoot tactic at fire team and squad level before.

 

[Genghis khan1]

Never trust Sunni extremist groups they change loyalties with the wind.

It’s what doomed Assad when he supported and gave safe haven to various Sunni groups who were against US occupation in Iraq.

Hopefully Iran has thought this thru.

Assad wasn’t doing for the love of them, he was running his own game. US played a master stroke, and started an uprising in Syria. Instead of dealing with it properly, that idiot started bombing Sunni Neighbour hood, which are the majority in the country. He shot himself in the foot, at the expense of his country.

 

[Genghis khan1]

The taliban are the natural shrub of the a large portion of afghan lands. In the 90s Iran was extremely weak and vulnerable. with saddam on the west flank, the west with no rivals wanting Iran dead, and a lawless afghanistan.

under those circumstances, some saudi supported taliban elements attackd Iranian interests. Today Iran is the undisputed king of the region. It has a ready made afghan loyal army by the name of fatemyoon.

and the taliban is extremely weak, and the last thing they want is to piss Iran off. I doubt the taliban is going to be so dumb to attack Iran. and if they do try, Iran is more then ready to teach them a devastating lesson this time around...

Iran has certainly come to some kind of understanding with the taliban, while keeping a plan B/C ready incase.. Iran is definitly going to carve some sort of zone of influence out of western afghanistan to protect its interets if i were to guess...

You are way over exaggerating Iranian capabilities. Iran is on the back foot in the region specially after taking out of solomani. Iran approach to Taliban is strategic, they know well US could use Taliban (via GCC countries) to wreaking havoc in Iran. Imagine a hardline Sunni regime/govt, harboring dozen anti Iranian extremists group, next to Iran, supported by wealth of GCC and expertise of the west. That’s game over for Iran.

Remember, Unlike US, Iran is next door. if Iran enter Afghanistan, so can Taliban enter Iran.

 

[khansaheeb]

Where is #phulsapport of Indians for these fleeing ANA soliders

It's like an Olympic sprint dash between ANA and the Indians who can get to the border first. Indians will win as they have had a lot of practice.

 

[PakFactor]

You are way over exaggerating Iranian capabilities. Iran is on the back foot in the region specially after taking out of solomani. Iran approach to Taliban is strategic, they know well US could use Taliban (via GCC countries) to wreaking havoc in Iran. Imagine a hardline Sunni regime/govt, harboring dozen anti Iranian extremists group, next to Iran, supported by wealth of GCC and expertise of the west. That’s game over for Iran.

Remember, Unlike US, Iran is next door. if Iran enter Afghanistan, so can Taliban enter Iran.

Iranians will have to make peace to keep the eastern border from turning hot.

 

[Hack-Hook]

Iranians will have to make peace to keep the eastern border from turning hot.

We really don't need peace to stop the spillover from the border . Peace is good for commerce but for security we managed to keep isis at bay in our western border . Talibans are far more reasonable and understanding than them

 

[Taimoor Khan]

Iran and Pakistan will never allow extra regional entities to have influence in Astan. Big mistake for the government in that country to let in the Indians.

With all due respect, where is this confidence about Iran is coming from? It will be naive for us Pakistanis to trust these slippery Persians. Nothing should be left on any goodwill. Pakistan must watch out for it own interests with cold blooded ruthlessness and efficiency.

This happened a day ago, while Talibans were in Iran. Surely, we Pakistanis cant be this naive?

India-Iran pull off a diplomatic surprise as Jaishankar meets President-elect Ebrahim Raisi (theprint.in)

 

[SalarHaqq]

I think he’s referring to the attack on Iranian diplomats in Herat regarding the collusion and attacking Iran. Iran was close to attacking Herat by land as a result in 1998 I believe.

Mazare Sharif (not Herat). To this day, it is not 100% clear who was behind it. According to one of the Iranian delegates who survived the attack and managed to get out in time, it wasn't the work of Afghan Taliban but of some outlawed terrorist group normally operating in Pakistan, like Sipahe Sahaba.

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You are way over exaggerating Iranian capabilities. Iran is on the back foot in the region specially after taking out of solomani.

The removal of one man will not affect the overall geostrategic balance this much. In fact Iran's broad position in the region remains unchanged.

Iran approach to Taliban is strategic, they know well US could use Taliban (via GCC countries) to wreaking havoc in Iran. Imagine a hardline Sunni regime/govt, harboring dozen anti Iranian extremists group, next to Iran, supported by wealth of GCC and expertise of the west. That’s game over for Iran.

Remember, Unlike US, Iran is next door. if Iran enter Afghanistan, so can Taliban enter Iran.

Of course Iran being mindful of her security is one of the reasons for Tehran's overture towards the Taliban.

This said, should the Taliban cause security problems for Iran, Iran is never going to send forces into Afghanistan, but rather will use that country's many lines of division to support groups opposed to the Taliban. And the quantity and quality of weaponry Iran can supply allies with is on a completely different level compared to the 1990's.

Much like it would be suicidal for Iranian forces to directly cross the border into Afghanistan, the same would hold true for the Taleban and allies if they attempted to invade Iran.

But these are largely baseless speculations anyway, since now Iran and the Taleban have reached an understanding and there's no concrete reason to assume it won't hold. Although of course, many powers, starting with the US which you rightfully evoked, are going to try everything to change this status quo. Washigton wants an Afghanistan which is hostile to Iran. The current Pakistani government however is not on board with such an idea.

 

[aryobarzan]

Second Afghan_Iran border crossing (there are three border crossings) also falls to Taliban..Some Afghan border units handover weapons and cross into Iran.

 

[Dariush the Great]

Second Afghan_Iran border crossing (there are three border crossings) also falls to Taliban..Some Afghan border units handover weapons and cross into Iran.

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Are these Afghan National Army soldiers? Many of them still have their uniforms. They escaped with their uniform. Aren't they supposed to stand and fight for their country? Very shameful.

 

[aryobarzan]

Are these Afghan National Army soldiers? Many of them still have their uniforms. They escaped with their uniform. Aren't they supposed to stand and fight for their country? Very shameful.

I think they have figured out who the winner is and being afraid for their family they are not fighting fellow afghans...most Afghan army recruits joined the military for salaries and not for political ideology.....something US Intelligence keeps forgetting about the armies they train and equip. Similar case with Iraqi army trained by the US during Daesh invasion.

 

[Dariush the Great]

I think they have figured out who the winner is and being afraid for their family they are not fighting fellow afghans...most Afghan army recruits joined the military for salaries and not for political ideology.....something US Intelligence keeps forgetting about the armies they train and equip. Similar case with Iraqi army trained by the US during Daesh invasion.

When you wear uniform of your nation no matter what the political situation is you are supposed to DEFEND the ground you are standing on. They should have been shot by Iranian border guards for leaving their posts and betraying their nation. Also these are all NATO trained (lol) elements. Very risky for Iran to let them come like that.

 

[Messerschmitt]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1412664349160882176

https://twitter.com/x/status/1413141554064023555

https://twitter.com/x/status/1413166949266305024

https://twitter.com/x/status/1413424170998935553