U.S.-Iran tension plays out in Afghanistan

KABUL, Afghanistan — Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visited Afghanistan on Wednesday and lashed out at American allegations that Iran was providing support to Afghan insurgents, accusing the United States of playing its own "double game."

The visit came on the heels of a trip by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who was still in Afghanistan on Wednesday even as Ahmadinejad predicted that U.S. efforts here would fail.

Ahmadinejad, who has made several visits to the country that neighbors Iran, said the United States was playing a "double game" in Afghanistan, fighting extremists it once supported.

Earlier in the week, Gates accused Iran of "playing a double game" by nurturing relations with the Afghan government while supporting insurgents to undermine U.S. and NATO troops. Iran denies the allegation.

During the 10 years that the Soviet Union fought in Afghanistan, the U.S. supplied rebels with everything from mules to advanced weaponry, including Stinger anti-aircraft missiles that helped neutralize Soviet air power. After the U.S. money evaporated, the world watched Afghanistan plunge into chaos and eventually harbor the al-Qaida terrorist network responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks.

While the United States has long-running suspicions about Iran's nuclear program, the two nations view the Taliban as a common enemy. Iran believes the Taliban warped the Islam religion to suit its ideology. Taliban forces killed eight Iranian diplomats in the late 1990s, and the group makes money from drug-smuggling operations across Iran's border with Afghanistan.

But while Iran supported efforts to oust the repressive Taliban regime from power in Afghanistan, it opposed the U.S.-led offensive to topple the Taliban after the 2001 terrorist attacks. Iran is wary of a long-term U.S. military presence in the region.

"Your country is located on the other side of the world so what are you doing here?" Ahmadinejad asked the reporter from a U.S. media outlet.

Ahmadinejad criticized the West, saying that its policies were resulting in Afghan civilians being killed and that its money spent on troops would be better spent on irrigation and other development projects.

"They themselves created terrorists and now they're saying that they are fighting terrorists," Ahmadinejad said at a joint news conference with Afghan President Hamid Karzai at his presidential palace.

Later in the day, Karzai flew to Pakistan for a visit with the leadership there.

The cluster of diplomacy, while ostensibly coincidental, nevertheless is an indication of the intensifying dialogue as the United States, Afghanistan and its neighbors begin trying to put the pieces in place for an eventual resolution to the war and angle to protect their interests in whatever regional order prevails.

Asked for his reaction to Ahmadinejad's visit so close to his own, Gates at first said that "it's clearly fodder for conspiratorialists."

The Pentagon news secretary, Geoff Morrell, said Gates was reacting to bloggers who had suggested he and Ahmadinejad were in Kabul to make a secret three-way deal with Karzai.

Gates then said, "We think Afghanistan should have good relations with all of its neighbors, but we also want all of Afghanistan's neighbors to play an upfront game in dealing with the government of Afghanistan."

Ahmadinejad's criticism puts Karzai in an awkward spot because he is dependent on the United States and other donor nations to rebuild Afghanistan after decades of war.

In his opening remarks, Karzai struck a friendly chord. But just in case the Afghan media didn't share his collegial approach, security guards hurriedly collected water bottles from journalists just before the news conference started. Journalists in the audience said it was done to prevent anyone from throwing a bottle at the Iranian leader.