A quick note to Iranian friends who assumed that the Taleban will rush to antagonize Iran and Iranian interests. As you could witness, nothing much has happened in this regard after nearly four months of Taleban take over in Kabul. As a matter of fact, direct bilateral incidents have boiled down to a lame, brief and utterly inconsequential border squirmish exclusively due to the inexperience of some token Taleban border patrols, and not to deliberate policy on Kabul's part. When it comes to Shia Afghans, apart from two or three murders and a limited number of people expelled from a village (not that I'm condoning any of these, but we're very far from the all out slaughter prophesized by liberals in Iran), nothing happened. On the contrary, we saw Taleban officials partake in Ashura matam processions, raise an Ashura flag which had been pulled down by someone, and generally guarantee the basic rights of Shia Muslim Afghans.
By contrast, it is rather our Pakistani neighbours who have expressed grievances against the Taleban. Nearly every other week or so, there's a news item posted on this very website about Afghan Taleban tearing down fences or fortifications on the border to Pakistan, fences which are intended to keep at bay TTP militants - so-called Pakistani Taleban launching terror attacks against the Pakistani army in the Pashtun-inhabited region of Waziristan, and still enjoying some safe havens on Afghan soil, despite the fall of Kabul to the Afghan Taleban...
I would advise Iranians to browse relevant threads in the Pakistani sections of the forum. It is quite interesting, and surprising even. You might also notice how the more secular-oriented users from Pakistan are expressing reservations about the Afghan Taleban and challenging their less secular compatriots in brotherly debates on the topic.
Now let's be clear: Iran certainly isn't accepting the TTP and will surely stand with Pakistan on the issue. However, fathom all the Iran-hating and/or Shia-hating users here who were literally drooling at the completely delusional and baseless prospect of so-called "Iranian proxies" launching attacks on the Afghan Taleban, or of the latter proceeding to strike Iran. Other than a certain American citizen, all of them have stopped voicing their dreams of a soon-to-erupt armed conflict between Iran and Taleban-controlled Afghanistan. Imagine the faces of better informed Iran-haters when they are confronted with the wishful thinking of said US citizen, considering how they witness on a regular basis these unfortunate news reports of some Afghan Taleban provoking Pakistan one way or another.
www.rt.com
