How Do Other Afghan Ethnic Groups View Iran-Hazara Relations?

In my previous post, I explained that how certain historical events have shaped the future of Hazaras and also how those events have affected Hazaras relations with Iran. The 9/11 attacks and its aftermath, which ushered in a new phase of Hazara’s liberation with the opportunity to finally enjoy some freedom. I indicated that such achievement has not been possible without the support of the United States and the international community.

In this post, as promised earlier, I will address some opposing arguments, which have often made by some other Afghan ethnic groups against the Hazaras. From Pashtun and perhaps some Tajiks viewpoints, the Hazaras are still agents of Iran and spying for Iran, and they are not loyal to their country. Why? Here is one of the popular accusations that has always been made. I will discuss the scale of such accusations in historical context and will argue how such accusations have helped perpetuate persecution and discrimination against the Hazaras.

This is what they argue:
Iran and Hazaras have a strong bond and it comes from their common religion and language because they are both Shiite and speak the same language. Most of Afghan refugees living in Iran are Hazaras. Iran feels comfortable to work with them and use them not only against the United States, but also against Sunni Muslim in Afghanistan. Therefore, because of all these commonalities, the Hazaras are susceptible to Iran’s influence and it is not wrong to treat them as suspicious.

This kind of argument is nowhere near commons sense, nor based on evidence but built on allegations and prejudice. But, perhaps, one of the compelling evidences that would back up this argument is Iran’s involvement in the jihad war against the Soviet troops in Afghanistan. This was the beginning of Iran’s active engagement in Afghanistan’s affairs and as well as the beginning of Iran’s interaction with the Hazara people. Iran, like Pakistan played an active role by creating eight Shiite political parties, during the 1980s, to fight the Soviet troops.

Iran’s influence on Hazaras during the Soviet occupation is unquestionable. However, after the withdrawal of Soviet forces in 1989, the game has changed because the regional and transregional players achieved their goals: rolling back the Soviet to its borders. But what followed the post-Soviet occupation, was a series of disastrous events in which some players still found themselves unable to stop hepling once they started.  What happened subsequently was quite predictable. Iran lost its interest in Hazaras and instead began working with Tajiks, and their famous commander, Ahmad Shah Massoud. Iran realized that the Hazaras did not have the ability nor the capacity to run a government. During this time, Iran prefered and wished to have Tajiks ruling the country, however, it never had a serious and consistent foreign policy on bringing the Farsi speakers to power in Afghanistan. Nevertheless, Iran, continued to support the ruling political parties of Tajiks, Shura-e Nazar (supervisory council), and Jamiat-e Islami (Islamic society), until the fall of the Taliban regime.

On the contrary, the Hazara political parties which played an important role during the civil war between 1992-1995 and after losing the battle in Kabul, gradually marginalized and eventually became under the dominance of the Tajik parties, Shura-e Nazar, and Jamiat-e Islami, which later all of them made an alliance under compulsion to fight the Taliban regime. It is undeniably true that the Hazara parties kept close contact with Iran throughout the 1990s and up until the fall of the Taliban regime, because Iran did not want to have a brutal regime ruling Afghanistan, especially after 1998 murder of its diplomats and journalist at Iranian consulate, but the assistance was not direct and substantial because the Hazara parties relied on Northern Alliance logistic support. There were, however, other factions with direct support of Iran which they still receive Iran's support, namely, Harakat-e Islami Afghanistan (Islamic Movement of Afghanistan) that is led by its founder, Muhammad Asif Muhsini, who is ethnically a Pashtun from Kandahar, but religiously a Shia. He does not represent the Hazara people and the Hazaras hate him because of his racism attitudes against their late leader, Abdul Ali Mazari, also because of his notorious and misogynistic law allowing Afghan men to rape female.

To recapitulate, the Hazaras have changed as result of going through certain and decisive events, which took place during the 1990s and post-Taliban era. The detachment from the dominance and influence of Iran and its religious revolutionary ideology to becoming independent, and domesticating liberal and modern values, which heralded awakening of Hazaras, has not been a smooth transition. The Hazaras have paid a heavy price for their relations with Iran, but finally determined to liberate themselves from within and from without. They endured years of intense internal factional conflicts, and then suffered through dreadful years of mass atrocity against themselves by the Taliban. Therefore, it is not fair to build an accusation based on some matters which do not exist any longer. Speculation and accusation based on old and obsolete factors are not only helpful, but perpetuate prejudice and discrimination. Finally, those who still make these kind of allegations against Hazaras either being ignorant of Afghanistan’s history and the changes took place in recent decades, or for any reason, afraid to understand and acknowledge them.

In the upcoming posts, I will further discuss and analyze the opposing arguers’ points in different ways.

Why Hazaras Are Supporting The U.S., But Not Iran?

In my previous blog post, I argued that Iran has not been successful in exerting its influence through the Hazaras in Afghanistan, despite its strong historical, cultural, linguistic, and religious ties with them. In this post, I will elaborate my argument about the extent to which some historical events, particularly during the Taliban regime contributed to Hazaras’ awareness, which eventually led to changes in their attitudes and their political behavior toward Iran. In the next blog post I will review some opposing arguments, but first, let me straighten out why this political divorce have happened and why the Hazaras are mistrustful of Iran.

To find an adequate reason to why Hazaras refused and warded off Iran’s infiltration and noxious intention of fueling anti-American sentiment in Afghanistan, we have to look at some historical events that led to such drastic changes.
In November 1998, when the Taliban force took over the city of Mazar-e Sharif for the second time, the chauvinist governor of Balkh, Mullah Manan Niazi, announced that the Hazaras are infidels and killing them is not a sin. Niazi then gave Hazaras three options: convert to Sunni Islam, leave the country, or die. The Hazaras did not leave, nor converted into Sunni Islam, but then, the death arrived. According to Human Rights Watch (HRW) between 1998 and 2001, the Taliban massacred thousands of Hazaras and burned down their houses in Mazar-e Sharif (read HRW report on Mazar-e Sharif massacre) and Bamiyan (read HRW report on one of Bamiyan’s district massacre). Thousands of people fled their homes and others displaced at large-scale. Iran kept quiet as Shiite Hazaras were slaughtered by the Taliban regime.

It was the 2001 U.S. presence in Afghanistan that saved millions of Hazaras from ethnic cleansing. When the U.S. forces entered Afghanistan, the Hazaras were the first to welcome the U.S. presence in their country. In 2003, after the provisional government was established, Hazaras were the first to voluntarily join the disarmament process in order to cooperate with the transitional government. In November 2013, when Karzai convened a national assembly on a bilateral security agreement with the U.S. that would let the United States to leave some troops beyond 2014, the Hazara delegates overwhelmingly endorsed the deal. Not only that, according to the Wall Street Journal, the Hazara delegates even urged the United States to open a base in Bamiyan.

Today, the Hazara minority group that has faced long-term persecution, fears that the Taliban regime will return and is therefore a strong supporter of the U.S. troops’ presence beyond 2014, which is contrary to Iran’s policy in Afghanistan. Iran wants the U.S. to leave Afghanistan because it fears that Afghanistan might be used as a platform for attacking it. The Hazara people have been aware of Iran’s intention in Afghanistan and they have realized that what Iran wants in Afghanistan is against their national interests. Therefore, if anyone wonders why Hazaras have distanced themselves from Iran, they should look at the events that directly affected the existence of Hazaras in Afghanistan. The fact that how much Hazaras have been enjoying the past decade of status quo, highlights the changes in their attitudes, and behavior toward Iran. 

Iran and Afghanistan Relations after U.S. Withdrawal

Two years ago, in February 2013, I gave a talk at the Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies (CREEES) at Stanford University on how Iran’s soft power is in decline in Afghanistan, and how it has overly been inclined to resort to hard power. (Here, you can read a short synopsis of my talk’s proposed content.) While some may argue that Iran’s influence is undeniable and perhaps, is more profound than we think, here, I will explore the relationship of Iran with the Hazaras of Afghanistan, especially in the post-Taliban era to determine the extent of Iran’s influence in the country.

I will argue that Iran has not been successful in pursuing its goals appertaining to its foreign policy in Afghanistan because it has lost one of the most useful and traditionally accessible avenues for channeling its influence to the country. This avenue could not be anything else, but the Hazara people who are historically, culturally, linguistically, and religiously closer than anyone else in Afghanistan. The Hazaras are mostly Shiites who constitute the third largest ethnic group in Afghanistan, and for the past decade they have played an important role in every aspects of the country. Iran has been aware of the Hazaras' crucial role and thus, doing anything to receive benefits from its relationship with them.

Given the unpredictability and uncertainty of Afghanistan’s future after the U.S. forces’ withdrawal, it is important to know, and to a certain extent predict, how its neighbors’ behavior will differ from that of the last 13 years. In a series of blog posts, I will look at Iran and Afghanistan’s relationship during the 1980s, through its civil war of the 1990s, and the post-Taliban era. My main focus will be the Hazaras of Afghanistan and their interactions with Iran.