Iran's former ambassador to Afghanistan said that for Pashtuns, ethnicity comes before the Koran.
Author: Rustam Roshangar, analyst, especially for “Sangar”
Abulfazl Zuhrawand, Iran's former ambassador to Afghanistan, has made a good point criticizing Iran's engagement with the Taliban, Iran's migrant problems, and the prospects for Iran-Afghan relations. While anti-migrant circles in Iran may use parts of Zahravand's speech to advance their point of view, overall Zahravand's views on macro-regional issues and cultural-people's diplomacy are very instructive and based on a deep understanding of the situation in Afghanistan and its structural and root problems.
I noted several points in Zuhravand's speech that I think would be of strategic benefit to Iran and Afghanistan if policymakers in the Islamic Republic of Iran based their Afghanistan policy on it:
1 - Pashtunism is the main and root cause of the crisis in Afghanistan. Zuhravand's understanding of this issue is very real. He said that Pashtunist thinking has led to Afghanistan's failure to achieve permanent stability and security. This is a very accurate, wise, and insightful vision. He rightly said that for Pashtunists, Pashtunism is more important than the Koran and Islam. In this context, he pointed to Ghani, Khalilzad, and others who, as a result of the conspiracy, ensured the dominance of the Pashtun Taliban over other ethnic groups. For the last hundred years, Pashtunism has been the dominant vision of politics in Afghanistan. It believes that seventy percent of the non-Pashtun population deserves forced migration, genocide, and enslavement. All the wars of the last hundred years in our country were an attempt to implement this idea. Naturally, others do not sit idly by and let the Pashtuns do whatever they want with them. Others are defending and resisting, while the Pashtuns are doing everything they can to get outside help and suppress the legitimate resistance of the people. This is a summary of the definition of our war. External factors are aggravating, not creative factors!
2 - Iran has nothing in common with the Taliban. The Taliban is a terrorist organization, and interaction with them not only does not benefit Iran, but on the contrary, the country is increasingly under pressure from a huge new wave of immigration. This point of view of Zuhravand is also very accurate. Iran's interactions with the Taliban encouraged the group to suppress non-Pashtuns and triggered a huge wave of migration. If Iran takes steps to protect Persian speakers, non-Pashtuns will return to their lands, and migration to Iran will be reduced by 80%. According to Zuhravand, the policy of interaction with the Taliban is the policy of China, Russia, and America, and these countries have reasons for this. Iran should not follow such a policy but should develop its independent regional policy based on the cultural and social structure of the peoples of Iran and Afghanistan. Zuhravand effectively orders the Iranian government to confront the Taliban. He wants to engage with Afghanistan without the Taliban. This is the desire of the people of Afghanistan. With the Taliban, Afghanistan cannot live either with itself, or with the region and the world. Of course, current tactical interactions satisfy most of the foreigners' temporary goals.
3 - Formation of a union between Afghanistan and Iran and the removal of the border between these two countries. In this part of the negotiations, Mr. Zuhravand mentions an important strategic issue - the formation of a union between Afghanistan and Iran based on cultural and linguistic commonality. He says that the formation of such an alliance is of strategic importance for both countries and, according to him, nowhere in the world are there such compelling reasons and commonalities between two countries for erasing borders as in Iran and Afghanistan.
4 - Management of Afghan migrants in Iran. Although in this context Zuhravand pointed out controversial issues that could be exploited by anti-migrant elements, his overall point was that the existence of migrants provides Iran with more opportunities that can be used to achieve Iran's strategic interests in national politics and the international dimension. He said migrants should be separated from asylum seekers and displaced people, and separate policies should be developed and implemented for each. It should be said that until now Iran has not had a reasonable policy based on the separation and accurate identification of Afghan migrants. In Iran, an Afghan government minister, a journalist, a party leader, an army general, a political opponent of the Taliban, and an ordinary Afghan are treated equally, and each is treated as a displaced person from floods and earthquakes. And a smart and separatist policy is both for the benefit of migrants and for the benefit of Iran. Zuhravand had good recommendations on this issue. Not everyone should be considered a terrorist. Most of the several million refugees who have sought refuge in Iran over the past two years are those who would have been killed, imprisoned, and tortured by the Taliban had they remained in Afghanistan. These are refugees. These are people of culture, knowledge, and profession. They can be used in the development of Iran. They can be used as strong bridges of strategic relations between two countries that share the same language and culture. Ordinary migrants can also be included in the intelligent system and use their labor force, aware of the possible security risks.
