# NATO: Members may use Iran for Afghan supplies



## tomahawk6 (2 Feb 2009)

http://www.armytimes.com/news/2009/02/ap_nato_iran_afghanistan_020209/

NATO: Members may use Iran for Afghan supplies

By Slobodan Lekic - The Associated Press
Posted : Monday Feb 2, 2009 12:43:02 EST
   
KABUL — NATO’s top military commander said Monday he would not oppose any arrangements that individual member nations may strike with Iran to supply their forces in Afghanistan.

Gen. John Craddock’s comments came just days after NATO’s secretary general, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, urged the U.S. and other members of the Western military alliance to engage with the Shiite nation in a regional approach to combat Taliban militants in Afghanistan.

“Those would be national decisions, nations should act in a manner that is consistent with their national interest and with their ability to resupply their forces. I think it is purely up to them,” Craddock, who is NATO’s supreme allied commander, told The Associated Press.

Securing alternative routes to landlocked Afghanistan has taken on added urgency this year as the United States prepares to double its troop numbers there to 60,000 to battle a resurgent Taliban eight years after the U.S.-led invasion.

It also comes at a time when the main supply corridor through neighboring Pakistan is becoming volatile following insurgent attacks on convoys that supply the foreign troops in Afghanistan.

“NATO is looking at flexible, alternate routing. I think that is healthy,” Craddock said, when asked about the possibility of using Iranian territory for supply.

“Options are a good thing, choices are a good thing, flexibility in military operations is essential,” he said. “What nations will do is up to them,” he said, without elaborating.

Some experts suggest that nations with good relations with Iran such as France, Germany and Italy may try to set up an alternate supply route to western Afghanistan via Char Bahar, a port in southeastern Iran.

Craddock’s comments came after U.S. Central Command chief Gen. David Petraeus said last month that America had struck deals with Russia and several Central Asian states close to or bordering Afghanistan to allow supplies to pass through their territory.

U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan get up to 75 percent of “non-lethal” supplies such as food, fuel and building materials from shipments that cross Pakistan.

Some political and military leaders have hinted at the need for closer cooperation with the government in Iran over the war in Afghanistan, where some 70,000 NATO and U.S. troops are trying to beat back the resurgent Taliban.

The United States has viewed with suspicion Iran’s role in Afghanistan, although the Shiite nation has a long history of opposing Taliban rule.

U.S. officials have previously alleged that Iranian-made weapons and explosive devices were finding their way in the hands of insurgents in Afghanistan. But such criticism has been muted recently as President Barack Obama’s administration tries to set a new tone in relations with Iran.


----------



## The Bread Guy (2 Feb 2009)

Could be tricky politically, but maybe NATO countries playing nicer with IRN could keep that country from dumping loads of refugees back into AFG (and we're talking almost 2 million if you believe the UN - and they're already headed home at a rate of 1k/day, if you believe IRN authorities)?

Refugees forced back + no work prospects for them + not enough safe places for them to return to = mighty tempting targets for recruitment by the bad guys


----------



## geo (2 Feb 2009)

Given the greeting the Royal Navy got in Iraqi/Iranian waters last year, I would content that both the US & the UK will seek other routes to supply their troops in Afghanistan.  Canada, Holland, France, Italy, Spain & Germany have had a fairly quiet relationship with the current Iranian government.... something might be possible - for a price - monetary or political or both...


----------



## Journeyman (2 Feb 2009)

geo said:
			
		

> *Canada,...had a fairly quiet relationship with the current Iranian government.... * .


DFAIT may disagree. 

Essentially, we pulled our Ambassador out of Iran in 2007 (representation is now just a Chargé D'affaires); bilateral investment is pretty much tubed; Canada has been amongst the leaders of anti-Iranian UN sanctions (primarily nuclear materiel issues); no "Merry Christmas/Happy Jihad" cards exchanged between Harper and Ahmadinejad....


....and that's if they're not still miffed at Ken Taylor's hostage exfiltration efforts during the 1979-'80 crisis


----------



## geo (2 Feb 2009)

Touché Journeyman.


----------



## Yrys (14 Mar 2009)

U.S. Seeks New Afghan Supply Routes, Even in Iran, NY Times, March 11, 2009

WASHINGTON — The United States is seeking new supply routes for the war in Afghanistan that 
would bypass Russia, and has even had logistics experts review overland roads through Iran that 
might be used by NATO allies, according to military planners and Pentagon officials.

The effort is aimed at developing reliable alternatives to routes through the Khyber Pass in Pakistan,
where convoys have come under increasing attack by the Taliban, and to prepare for the possible 
loss of an important air base in Kyrgyzstan. The planning also reflects growing concern that Russia 
could use its clout to restrict American and allied shipments that would be passing in greater amounts
through its territory on the way to staging areas in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan en route to Afghanistan.

Pentagon and military officials cautioned that the United States was not in any way considering 
the use of overland routes through Iran for American supplies, a politically implausible proposition 
given the near frozen state of relations between the United States and Iran. American officials 
say that recent overtures from the Obama administration toward Iran — Secretary of State 
Hillary Rodham Clinton last week proposed a conference on Afghanistan that would include Iran
— did not encompass any use of Iranian roads.

But Pentagon and NATO planners, as part of an effort to consider every contingency, have studied 
Iranian routes from the port of Chabahar, on the Arabian Sea, that link with a new road recently 
completed by India in western Afghanistan. The route is considered shorter and safer than going 
through Pakistan.

“In the course of prudent planning, our military planners have looked at virtually every conceivable
avenue of supplying our forces in Afghanistan,” said Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon press secretary. 
“However, as you would expect, they have done so with an eye on logistical feasibility rather than 
political reality.”

The route through Iran nonetheless might be the focus of bilateral supply talks conducted by 
individual NATO allies that have relations with Iran, as NATO’s supreme allied commander, 
Gen. John Craddock, an American, suggested last month. Moreover, the Shiite government 
in Iran has long had testy relations with the Sunni Taliban, improving the odds that it could 
offer transit of supplies to NATO nations.

In an interview in February with The Associated Press, General Craddock said NATO would 
not oppose individual member nations’ making deals with Iran to supply their forces in 
Afghanistan. “Those would be national decisions,” he said. “NATO should act in a manner that 
is consistent with their national interest and with their ability to resupply their forces. I think 
it is purely up to them.”

Outlines of potential alternatives to routes through Russia emerged in greater detail this week, 
as the American military hosted a conference in Baku, Azerbaijan, for transportation officials 
and private contractors from two former Soviet republics — Azerbaijan and Georgia — and from
Turkey to examine new supply routes into Afghanistan.

The route would be a west-to-east swing across the Caucasus region and into Central Asian states 
to the north of Afghanistan.

Officially, the United States and NATO would be expected to explain that this new route would be 
a supplement to other transit lines, and not intended as an antidote to potential Russian coercion 
as Russia takes on a greater share of supplying the Afghan mission.

“We want to avoid any danger of single-point failure, whether it’s Pakistan or Russia,” said one 
American military officer. “It’s simply prudent planning to have alternative lines of communication.”

Even so, any new deals for routes through former Soviet republics would diminish the Kremlin’s 
growing role in supplying the alliance in Afghanistan, and would be expected to frustrate the 
leadership in Moscow. In particular, including Georgia as part of a new route would irritate Russia.

Georgia, which fought a war last summer with Russia, is said by American officials to be eagerly 
seeking a role in supplying NATO troops in Afghanistan — as it desires alliance membership, and 
protection, and wants to do all it can to bind itself to the Atlantic alliance.

Although Russia expresses a desire to support the American and NATO mission in Afghanistan, 
Kremlin leaders offered large economic incentives to Kyrgyzstan to kick out the Americans from 
a base in Manas, just outside the Kyrgyz capital, that has been an important hub for moving 
troops into Afghanistan as well as a base for tanker planes.

Mr. Morrell, the Pentagon spokesman, said late Wednesday that the Kyrgyz government had 
agreed that American negotiators would travel there in coming days and engage in talks on 
extending access rights to the Manas base. The question of additional payments is expected 
to be central to the discussion. Even so, the Air Force is working on contingency plans to move 
the tanker fleet to bases in the Persian Gulf if it loses basing rights to Manas.

The Azeri capital, Baku, is emerging as a leading candidate to substitute for Manas, should 
the Kyrgyz government refuse to reconsider its withdrawal of the basing rights.

American and Azeri officials said that the focus of the discussions on Monday and Tuesday was 
a surface route that would move supplies from the Georgian port of Poti on the Black Sea and 
overland to Baku, where they would cross the Caspian Sea to Aktau, Kazakhstan, and then 
overland across Uzbekistan into Afghanistan.

A second potential route would land cargo at the Caspian seaport of Turkmenbashi, in Turkmenistan,
for transit into Afghanistan. Talks on supply routes have also been held with officials in Tajikistan, 
another neighbor to the north of Afghanistan.

One American official said the first “trial run” of cargo containers on the new route was conducted 
within the last two weeks, with shipments of lumber sent from Turkey to Georgia to Azerbaijan, 
and then onward toward Afghanistan.

At the conference, the American military was represented by officials from the European Command,
Transportation Command and Defense Logistics Agency, and officials said the talks focused only 
on movement of nonlethal supplies.


----------

