Why Iran and Afghanistan are headed to war

some actions have an end but no beginning some begin but do not end it all depends upon where the Observer is standing on May 27th tensions on The Afghan Iranian border boiled over near the city of zaran two people were killed two more were injured but while both sides quickly de-escalated the situation the incident highlights a deeply entrenched border dispute one that predates both governments yet this is no conflict over territory instead the tap rout of Afghan Iranian tensions is and always has been water rights since the 1870s water access in the syan Basin has formed a geopolitical friction point the Locust is the Helman river which runs through Afghanistan before terminating in eastern Iran the past few decades have seen rainfall drop precipitously the hamon Lakes once a civilization cradle are bone dry and now climate change threatens to convert the region into a permanent Dust Bowl the crisis is a force multiplier for a host of political sore points border security issues Refugee flows islamist militancy and illicit Goods trafficking all add to a lingering sense of unease mistrust and anxiety it remains to be seen whether these differences can be resolved by diplomatic means or otherwise Nations have gone to War for less one thing we do know water is more than just a bunch of atoms it possesses the power to shape both geography and politics the Iranian Afghan conflict seems far away but its Ripple effects are global American household debt levels are already reaching all-time highs and uncertainty over interest rates threatens to sink the Investments the upper middle class worked years to build for centuries High net worth investors survived instability with Safe Haven assets and now you're just a few clicks away from unprecedented access to the most exclusive of all museum grade Fine Art Masterworks the sponsor of this video has created a one of- aind database of art auctions from the last 50 years and they've used it to purchase Blue Chip art they believe will appreciate in value they handle all the leg work authentication acquisition and storage then they qualify the offerings with the SEC allowing you to invest in works from names like Picasso Banky and basat their 15 sales to date have all returned profits to their investors including net returns of 177% 35% and even 77% offerings have sold out within minutes so there is a wait list but Caspian report subscribers can skip the line and get started today by using the link in the description see important disclosures at [Music] masterworks.io by sparse rainfall and glacial melt managing these scarce resources is a matter of vital importance for Afghanistan but since three of the country's five major rivers cross into neighboring states Afghan water policy is inherently geopolitical of all the regional Rivers the most important is the helmund which runs through Afghanistan before terminating in the hamon wetlands on the Iranian border for the past five millennia these marshes have formed a cradle of civilization their importance to Regional agriculture is attested to an ancient literature and the religious texts of Zoroastrianism yet since the mid 19th century a British imposed border has complicated the issue of water rights though 95% of the Helman straddles Afghan territory decisions made Upstream yield grave consequences for the Iranian Hammons and while efforts to codify water rights have been pursued by both States no final deal has ever been reached in other words the dispute has no legal basis the closest thing to a binding agreement is the 1973 helmund water treaty which forms the Bedrock of bilateral water policy under the treaty Iran can draw 22 cubic M of water from the river per second with an option to buy another 4 cubic m/s in years of normal range rainfall this amounts to roughly 820 million cubic M of water per year but since the agreement was never ratified enforcement depended on good faith something in as short supply as the water itself political Discord in both signatory States has not helped either the 1973 Afghan coup 1979 Iranian Revolution Soviet Afghan war the us-led Afghan occupation and the rise and subsequent reemergence of the Taliban have only imposed further obstacles as such long-term infrastructure planning has proceeded in fits and starts and today much of Afghanistan's water infrastructure consists of holdover Works mostly completed in the 1950s by American engineering firms these include the 44 M High AR gandab Dam Northeast of kahar and the kajaki dam 115 km Upstream from lashara these dams were intended to improve irrigation control flooding and provide hydroelectricity developing Afghan self-sufficiency in power generation yet they were built without first undertaking proper soil and topography studies and over time this contributed to Downstream salinization and damage to the hamon Lakes ecosystem not to be outdone by the Afghans on poor planning in 1983 the Iranian Fisheries company introduced alien fish species to the Hammon Lakes this caused immense damage as the invasive species devoured the lakes's Reeds undermining the ecosystem's food supply and in the 1990s the first Taliban government exacerbated the problem by choking off the hammon's water supply at the kajaki dam bad decision after bad decision Afghan Iranian relations soured the situation became so tense that in 1998 after a Taliban raid on the Iranian Consulate in Mazar Sharif killed eight Iranian diplomats tahan amassed nearly 200,000 troops on the border Iran opted not to invade but the situation demonstrated how quickly disputes concerning water rights could boil over into full-blown conflict thereafter tan continued to support anti-taliban groups including the Northern Alliance which was subsumed into the new government following the American lead invasion in 2001 even so Iran's hard line on the Taliban was never set in stone instead relations between the two sides oscillate depending on whoever controls Kabul at any one time thus the period following the taliban's 2001 outing by the US proved one of reapo encroachment the water dispute continued though this time with the Afghan Republic yet the focus of tensions shifted away from the taliban's treatment of Afghanistan's Shia minority and towards the Afghan Republic's apparent tolerance of the opium trade and its status as an American vessel supposedly when you go out looking for trouble you will find trouble throughout the US occupation Iran was one of the few states that engaged the Taliban efforts that expanded after the emergence of Isis K in 2015 the purely domestic orientation of the Taliban no doubt proved less irksome than the Islamic State's transnational Ambitions which threatened to stoke Sunni uprisings within Iran's borders accordingly Tan's complaints turned towards the new water infrastructures being built within the cyan Basin which it alleged would choke off Iran's water supply this includes the Afghan Turkish built Kamal Khan irrigation Dam completed in early 2021 with a capacity of 50 million cubic M of water and after the 2020 Doha agreement signaled an American withdrawal the tan Taliban engagement only deepened further yet few anticipated the speed of the Afghan Republic's collapse which caught even the Iranians off guard this coincided with the height of the coid pandemic and widespread water shortages which prompted Nationwide protests in Iran along with a heavy-handed government response the combination of domestic and Regional instability soon stoked clashes along the border and when in July 2022 Iran's president ibraim RI ordered his cabinet to push Kabul for a greater water share the Taliban responded by Reina dura the second phase of the kajaki dam threatening to impound another 1 billion cubic M of water and place Iran's water security under even greater strain roughly at the same time tensions increased further following a new influx of Afghan refugees this fueled Iran's long-standing concerns regarding separatism in its Southeastern cyan and baluchistan provinces since 2007 tan has banned Afghan refugees from settling there largely due to anxieties concerning the Region's status as a Sunni dominated marginalized and water-deprived Borderland which is an ideal concoction to Kickstart a separatist movement even so there are some matters on which both sides share an interest in cooperating though poppy cultivation soared under the US installed Afghan Republic the Taliban has since largely eradicated the trade following an Amnesty on the 2022 Harvest stringent enforcement of counternarcotics has seen opium production Fall by 4 fths in helmund a Taliban stronghold it is down a staggering 99% many farmers have switched to wheat yet while this has helped alleviate food shortages in a state under heavy sanctions grain production has produced Slimmer profit margins on occasion this has prompted violent clashes between Taliban militants and farmers and as with all forms of prohibition skyrocketing prices are are providing lucrative opportunities for Bootleggers gutsy enough to defy Taliban decrees thus by assisting the Taliban Teran could snuff out trafficking at its source this would help ease the strain on its own counternarcotics efforts which have wilted under the pressure of its porous 930 km Afghan border such programs would only become more relevant as climate change sets in opium is not only more lucrative than conventional agriculture but less water intensive and any letup in enforcement or Taliban influence at the hands of Isis K or others could see Poppy yields return to their pre-eradication levels within a single season but such Taliban Teran cooperation will not be possible without advances in minority rights in eastern Iran there is a significant amount of anti- Afghan sentiment mostly due to refugees border security issues and an opioid crisis largely seen as an Afghan problem meanwhile the Taliban attempts at establishing pashun cultural hegemony have fallen hard on its Persian speaking minorities this includes the suppression of Persian literature and language in favor of poshto mutual concessions on this front will thus be necessary finally the issue of water rights will have to be finalized in a properly ratified treaty whatever else their dis agreements both tan and the Taliban share a professed commitment to the Helmand water treaty though since nothing was ever ratified Afghanistan has the clear upper hand in negotiations recent tensions have not concerned the agreement's legitimacy so much as whether Afghanistan is obliged to feed Iran additional water in times of drought but while a blackl interpretation of the treaty leans towards Afghanistan the Taliban is an unre recognized government something Tran has been at pains to point out nonetheless the Taliban Remains The defao Sovereign Authority in Afghanistan regardless of legal technicalities thus in the long run Iran may be moved to recognize the Taliban possibly on the condition that it provides greater protections to its ethn religious kin within Afghanistan doing so would open up the dispute resolution procedures available on under the helmond river treaty this includes Article 4 and additional protocol 2 which provide detailed procedures for settling disagreements first through diplomatic channels then via third-party arbitration and then through an independent fact-f finding process to be conducted by a tribunal this may prove difficult though as it would need significant buyin from the Taliban it would also require a mediator that could command and the trust of both parties the most likely candidates would be Qatar which brokered the 2020 Doha agreement or China which recently brokered deals between Iran and Saudi Arabia whatever happens settling the dispute is in the mutual interest of both parties shared security issues necessitate it and beyond that neither side can afford new enemies the differences between them are significant in religious cultural and ethnolinguistic terms diplomacy is to do and say the most abhorent things in the nicest way but nowhere is it written that effective diplomacy requires complete consensus it merely requires Toleration I've been your host shiran from Caspian report all of our content is crowdfunded if you want to be part of that Network and gain access to some premium perks like Early Access PDF files Etc consider joining our platform on patreon or the YouTube membership program you'll find the links in the description box in any case thank you for your time and S

Channel: CaspianReport

Views: 1,372,285

Keywords: Iran, Afghanistan, Conflict, 2023, Media, News, Iranian, Afghan, Kabul, Tehran, Water, River, System, Herat, Isfahan, Helmand, Hamum, Lake, Drought, Climate, Change, Dry, Middle East

Id: wAkjaG9lr5U

Length: 15min 40sec (940 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 14 2023