Afghanistan's sensitive neighbors to the west

Recently Philip Smucker published an article in McClathy newspaper about how the Iranian post-election unrest is playing out just across the border in Herat. While the Iranian dismay and subsequent official Afghan acquiesence may seem troubling, the overall strategic effect is likely to hurt the Iranian regime's reputation even further beyond its borders. It also demonstrates the growing political turn-around of the region's youth, who through the increased access to modern information technology, are increasingly recognizing the folly of 'the Old Regime', and beginning to take matters into their own hands.

The following is a paraphrase of Smucker's article:

Last week, the Iranian Consulate in Herat near the Iranian border complained to the Afghan Ministry of Culture that the student newspaper, "Pegah," was inappropriately critical of Tehran's crackdown against pro-democracy demonstrators. The newspaper was closed for 10 days, the university fired the responsible journalists and the paper was reopened with no news of the protests.

The measure, however, is likely to backfire among Afghanistan's increasingly educated and media-savvy younger generation. Student groups denounced the newspaper's closure and refused to hold their tongues in public. This is a shift in sentiment, considering the role Iran has played in recent years as a cultured, wise and stable big brother to backward Afghanistan. Devastated by the brutality of their own warlords, many Afghans looked to Iran during the Soviet occupation of the 1980s and the Taliban rule of the 1990s and again after the U.S. invaded their country in 2001. Iran had residual influence, particularly with millions of Afghan refugees returning home after living in Iran and sharing its culture and politics for 12 years or more. To this day, a million Afghan refugees remain in Iran. By virtue of its economic ties and support for key areas of the Afghan government, Iran still wields considerable influence in Afghanistan. Increasingly, though, it's viewed by the broader public and by university students in Herat as an anachronistic and authoritarian regime that opposes the will of its own people.

Iran continues to maintain a large and highly-secretive consulate in Herat staffed by several dozen diplomats, spies and security agents, according to Afghans who live there, and while significant ISAF attention has been paid to the southern and eastern borders of the country, this is beginning to change. As they have in Iraq, Iran has played a double game in Afghanistan - on the one hand they have sought to support the Afghan government and, at the same time, undermine U.S. influence by supporting elements of the insurgency. While the US has yet to establish any consulate in Herat, as mentioned, more and more forces and resources are being allocated to this region. And now, after the Iranian government's crackdown, the popular defiance following the disputed June 12 election, and their over-sensitivity to negative press, they are beginning, FINALLY, to overplay their hand. Many believe Tehran's political influence in Afghanistan, like other places in the region and around the world, is now in a downward spiral.