McChrystal Claims Iran Aiding Taliban

Weeks After Denial, McChrystal Claims 'Clear Evidence' of Iranian Involvement

Obama Administration officials have long accused Iran of being secretly in league with the Taliban, but in the absence of evidence the claims have regularly been rejected by military officials, including Gen. Stanley McChrystal who just last month insisted there was zero proof that Iran had anything to do with the Taliban and said cross-border movement of trainees and weapons was not operationally significant.

But now, just weeks later, Gen. McChrystal is claiming there is “clear evidence of Iranian activity” in the war and that the US is working against their help of the Taliban.

Of course Gen. McChrystal provided no evidence to back up his allegation, and the fact remains that the Iranian government, on comparatively good terms with the US-backed Karzai government, has a long history of hostility against the Taliban.

Rather it seems McChrystal’s shift is more a function of the increased pressure he is under to show some modicum of progress in the endless war, and the quest for a new scapegoat to explain why the so-called McChrystal Plan hasn’t been any more successful than the myriad of other war plans were.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.