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Iran has up to 3 million drug addicts unofficially.
This social problem has huge costs for the Iranian State. In addition it compromises and criminalizes sections of the Iranian state who wish to profit from the business and which harms their fellow Iranians.
Naturally the Iranian state should fight this problem, and one approach to this problem has been the construction of a huge wall/fence along the Afghan border, and soon Pakistan border to cut off the supply of this Opium/Heroin from there. Security has also been beefed up along the border which has resulted in the deaths of up to 4000 security personnel since the early 1990's fighting the Traffickers.
This problem is a legacy of the British Imperialist who under the command of the East India Company 250 years ago introduced Opium as a cash crop in the region produced in India and exported to China. The response of the previous Shah government was weak and ineffective, but all too slowly the Iranian state under the mullahs has recognized the problem and has done something about it.
Building a fence and wall along the Af/Pak border, with beefed up security does not require a gigantic effort or imagination on the part of the Iranian state, and should have been undertaken by the Shah in the 1950's at least, if not by Reza Khan his father.
More crucially the Iranian state is taking a strategic perspective of the problem and is attempting to work with regional allies to deal with it. Iran under the guise of security co-operation is working with Afghanistan and Pakistan to deal with the problem. This is excellent and long overdue....something the Shah regime should have done but didn't due to pressure from the JEWSA, who were his ultimate puppet masters.
Suffice to say the East India Company is back in Afghanistan with its Imperialist forces..........harvesting Opium, and have converted the hapless war torn country of 30 years into a giant Anglo-American Opium plantation with the exhausted Afghans as the new slaves working on the Anglo-American Opium plantation. All manner of cock and bull false stories are manufactured to allow these occupation forces to stay in Afghanistan, based on an ever changing narrative. (This blog has covered this story, and there are plenty of good sources out there for interested parties).
So what the mullah's in Iran are doing are good in relation to this one issue. I do not say that everything the mullah does is stupid. The Afghan Opium problem has become critical and the Mullah government has had to deal with it domestically, setting up far too many ineffective conflicting charities, AND taking the problem into the International plain with Iran's neighbors.
However I would like to make some overall strategic observations about the Afghan Opium problem.
Helping the Afghan farmer switch from Opium cultivation to something more productive, through the Afghan government is a step in the right direction, BUT:
(i) The Afghan government is weak, corrupt, ineffective and is a puppet regime of the JEWSA, who as a matter of policy has sought to recruit Afghan criminals who are key figures in the Afghan Opium business, as local and national leaders in the post-Taliban government since 2001. (Hamid Karzai's brother being one such notable example). Afghanistan is a sanctioned narco state of the JEWSA, who uses Afghan mafia figures to run the country. The same with Kosovo in Europe.
(ii) This moves us logically to the second point. Since the JEWSA is the main PROBLEM in Afghanistan then it is better to deal with the JEWSA rather than take on the difficult task of persuading Afghan farmers to switch from Opium cultivation in such an adverse situation. Iranian funds valuable as they are will thus be wasted in such a noble well meant endeavor.
(iii) Arming the Taliban is not preferable given that it is an extremist SUNNI resistance group which is vehemently opposed to SHIA Iran. When in power in Kabul the Taliban carried out savage campaigns against the Shia minority in Afghanistan, notably the Hazari and unspeakable crimes against Iranian diplomats and their families in Mazar-i-Sharif in 1998. To this end Iran mobilized 250,000 troops on the Afghan border to warn the 40,000 Afghan militia in 1998, and backed the Northern Alliance extensively to defeat the Taliban. Morally it would be repugnant for Iran to back a group which was first created by the JEWSA, using the services of the Pakistan military from 1994 who ultimately still control them as "Controlled Opposition" for the JEWSA.
(iv) Greater co-operation with the puppet Kabul government thus, on this matter has limited utility. With Pakistan, greater effect can be borne. Pakistan too has a massive heroin addiction problem, but given that government/governance in Pakistan is far weaker than Iran, as a failed state (12 from bottom).....Pakistani statesmen have not addressed this issue, never mind taking real serious action against it. HOWEVER, as with Iran the Afghan heroin issue is a major problem for Pakistan and slowly through gradual lobbying of various public figures (Imran Khan PTI, Nawaz Sharif PML (N)....Iran can make the issue of Afghan heroin a top priority of the civil society in Pakistan, and thus connect with the basic general interests and sentiments of the Pakistani people. Lobbying the JEWSA trained and funded Pakistani security establishment with their extremist SUNNI bias, and corrupt crook billionaire Zardari and his PPP led government will be a complete waste of time. Gradually through extensive lobbying Pakistan can be brought to Iran's way of thinking.
(v) One simple way of dealing with the PROBLEM of the JEWSA and their Opium enterprise in Afghanistan, and general mischief in the region is to block them off. In Pakistan there is already calls by notable figures to completely block off the JEWSA occupation soldiers in Afghanistan. This action is morally right given the harm done to the region as a result of the odious occupation by the JEWSA, and is permitted under International Law. This is where Iran needs to lobby extensively in PAKISTAN.........and then Turkmenistan, then Uzbekistan, then Tajikistan......including JEWSA troops supplies originating from Kirghistan, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan. Finally lobbying in Moscow where Afghan Heroin is having a cataclysmic effective on the Russian population, but as yet has not engendered a coherent effective response from the Jewish run government in Moscow. All this will take time, but require serious effort by Iran based on national self interests and regional stability. Regional instability helps the JEWSA and Israel.
The Afghan heroin business is a Jewish run enterprise using the services of British and American security, who are paid a share for their involvement. The Afghan heroin profits are then laundered in "The City" in London and New York in the big Jewish run banks, which also run and control the Obama administration, and Cameron administration.
Therefore in light of this brief strategic analysis, Iran must seriously do the above and not waste valuable public funds trying to persuade a few Afghan farmers to turn away from Afghan heroin cultivation for the sake of publicity and propaganda.
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'Iran to help replace Afghan poppy fields'
By Presstv.com
Iran's Interior Minister Mostafa Mohammad-Najjar says Tehran will help Kabul replace poppy cultivation in Afghanistan based on agreements between the two countries.
“The undertaking of this project will end poppy cultivation in Afghanistan as one of the main producers of narcotics in the world,” Mohammad-Najjar was quoted by Fars News Agency as saying on Saturday.
He said Iran seeks to stop the spread of drug abuse through an initiative that aims to confront, treat, and prevent narcotics consumption in the country.
“To confront drug-trafficking mafia gangs, which mainly enter Iran from neighboring countries, we need the cooperation of regional countries as well as the help of the international community.”
Mohammad-Najjar, who is also the Secretary General of Iran's Counter Narcotics Headquarters, added that Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan have held joint meetings and reached good agreements with regards to the drug problem in the region.
The poppy cultivation and illicit drug trade in Afghanistan has come at a heavy cost to neighboring Iran.
The war on Afghan-originated drugs has claimed the lives of nearly 3,700 Iranian police officers over the past 30 years.
With a 900-kilometer (560-mile) common border with Afghanistan, Iran has been used as the main conduit for smuggling Afghan drugs to kingpins in Europe.
The Islamic Republic has spent more than USD 700 millions to seal the borders and prevent the transit of narcotics destined for European, Arab and Central Asian countries.
