Gates: Iran Support for Taliban "Limited"

(AP)  U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Thursday that Iranian support for the Taliban in Afghanistan is "pretty limited" - so far.

Gates noted that he had a public exchange of barbs with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad this week over which country is doing harm in Afghanistan. He had accused Tehran of undermining U.S. and NATO efforts by helping the Taliban.

"I have talked about Iran playing a double game in Afghanistan, wanting a good relationship with the Afghan government and wanting to make our lives harder," he said.

"At this point the level of their effort I think is not a major problem for us," Gates said. "The level of their support for the Taliban, so far as best we can tell, has been pretty limited. I was just trying to express the hope that it wouldn't get any worse."

In Riyadh on Wednesday, Gates told Saudi leaders Wednesday that the U.S. effort for diplomatic engagement with Iran had come to naught and asked for the influential kingdom's help to win wide backing for strong economic penalties against Tehran.

The offer of talks with Iran to resolve doubts about the intent of its nuclear program remains on the table, U.S. officials said, but the United States has moved away from making outreach to Iran the primary goal.

Ahmadinejad responded Thursday, saying, "The Iranian nation will not allow the world power (the U.S.) to corrupt and create chaos in the Persian Gulf."

"You are wrong if you think that you will be able to dominate the oil of Iraq and the Persian Gulf through deploying military forces," Ahmadinejad said. "The young people of the region will cut your hands off of the Persian Gulf Oil."

"Pakistanis, Afghans, the Persian Gulf states should be watchful," Ahmadinejad told a crowd at the southern Iranian port of Bandar Abbas. "They do not serve anybody."

Gates was in Afghanistan for three days this week. He spoke Thursday at a military base that is home to an Air Force refueling and surveillance operation serving the war in Afghanistan.

The Pentagon asked press traveling with Gates not to name the base.

[smoknmirrors]

Is it possible that our government could just tell this little Iranian putz to engage himself in an anatomical impossibility? He's a lying piece of garbage whose existence is contradictory to Darwin's theory of evolution and antithetical to any notion of intelligent design. There is no way this sliver of slime descended from apes, that would be an insult to apes, and evolution does not work backward from the muck. It is, however, just remotely possible he was somehow a product of Allah's momentary need to relieve Himself, but I'm sure Allah thought He had flushed. Our people should just stoop down and look him in his eye and blow him off as the degenerate he so valiantly strives to become. Don't give credence to craap by stroking it.

[sean66x]

NATO fights against Taliban and al Qada because the umbrella group suffers from political exclusion. The Karzai government could make peace with many of the factions if they are offered political enfranchisement. Kabul should not war with Taliban due to denial of civil rights.

[smoknmirrors]

NATO fights against Taliban and Al Qada because they attacked the United States of America and Great Britain and other freedom-loving nations around the globe. The umbrella group suffers from political exclusion because they prefer bullets and bombs to ballots. It's their choice that got them these consequences. Of course, the Karzai government is free to make peace by offering political enfranchisement. Nothing is stopping them from doing that. Maybe Karzai is apprehensive that offering the Taliban/Al Qada a seat at the table is prelude to forfeiting the table! The only civil right being denied the Taliban/AlQada is the right to alter the government by DOA via IED. If Karzai is smart, he should be apprehensive. Suspicious. Cautious. Well protected. Or the Taliban will do to him what they did to Budda.