You may be right. But it is unfortunate for Afghanistan. The Taliban have an opportunity to unite and interact with the world while balancing that with Afghanistan’s national interests. I hope Iran will give them a chance because no one else will.
Instability in Afghanistan is not a desirable eventuality for Iran at all. Not just for Iran but also for heavyweights like China, which will oppose such an outcome because of the risk it poses to its OBOR project. Instability is what the common enemies of Iran and China, aka NATO are keen on provoking. Not to mention how this would boost the arrival of additional Afghan refugees as well as narcotics smuggling.
Moreover the notion that the Taleban are divided between autonomously acting warlord factions is largely a myth, as experts with deep knowledge of the subject matter and years of field research behind them have explained. As in practically every organization of that scale, there are political factions within the Taleban but divisions are not such that an external player could easily exacerbate them to the point of open conflict, and the sense of collective interest between these factions is prevalent enough to prompt cohesion in case of outside intervention of that kind.
The Iranian government has adopted the right approach. Cutting supplies of basic necessities to Afghanistan or simply the threat thereof, has the potential to impact the decision making of the current government of Afghanistan in regards to Iran's water rights. Other options are conceivable as well. However, unless Iran is attacked anything involving all out conflict with or within Afghanistan should not and will not be on the agenda anytime soon (possible existence of contingency plans to that effect notwithstanding).
Same goes for foreign-sponsored friction between Iranians and Afghan immigrants, by the way. All this will achieve is to negatively affect social peace and more importantly, to alienate millions of Afghan residents who actually oppose the Taleban staunchly and would therefore side with Iran in the hypothetical case of serious bilateral escalation.
Yes, chronological coincidence and nothing more.
1) The secretary of the SNSC is traditionally replaced every decade give or take. Shamkhani fulfilled this function from September 2013 to May 2023.
2) He was appointed both to the Expediency Council and as a political advisor to the Supreme Leader on Monday.
For those interested in the reasons, have a listen to the following:
The first point mentioned is particularly instructive: the very fact that Shamkhani akin to other liberal figures in the past including their patron Hashemi Rafsanjani, is wielding considerable influence within the state apparatus and that various official positions are staffed by men loyal to him, is not without effect on the Leader's decision to appoint him to new posts.
The Leader has a duty to keep the system as stable as possible. This is compounded by the threat emanating from Iran's existential foreign enemies who will not hesitate to exploit the slightest sign of political instability, and attempts to sideline liberals happen to be inherently conducive to such given how the latter will react by mobilizing their supporters to stir unrest. So the revolutionary core of the system must tread carefully when setting out to isolate certain deviationist elements.
What this also means is that any citizen casting their vote in favor of reformists or moderates, is complicit in aiding these camps to safeguard the clout they gained within the system, which includes their near monopoly over the Iranian media landscape (especially when it comes to strictly online-based media), their subversive influence upon Iranian academia and so on.
People who are thus assisting liberals and their effort to infiltrate public institutions are definitely in no position to take issue with the Leader when politicians such as Shamkhani are maintained within the system, or when Zibakalam (who considers Iranian civilization to be an "inferior" one) is allowed to keep his chair at Tehran University while inviting the ambassador of a EU state to his home for lunch. Instead of strengthening the Leader's hand and acting as soldiers to him the voters in question contribute to turning officials they later go on criticizing, into politically unshunnable components.
