At a Hague meeting on Afghanistan attended by US's Richard Holbrooke and Iranian representative Mohammad Mehdi Akhoondzadeh, the Iranian rep stated that, "the presence of foreign forces has not improved things in the country, and it seems than an increase in the number of foreign forces will prove ineffective." The delegate added that resources should be focused on building Afghanistan's military forces.
Mr. Akhoondzadeh also mentioned Iran's willingness to combat drug trafficking and reconstructing Afghanistan's infastructure. Afghanistan's drug problem has shown to be Iran's problem as well. Iranian officials say the drug war has cost their nation over $600 million in the last two years. Drug clashes have claimed 3,700 Iranian security officials and injured 11,000 in more than 12,000 clashes between traffickers and police officers between 1989 and 2003, according to Iranian statistics cited in a UN report.
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"Iranians say they're wary of getting burned, as they say they were after quietly cooperating with the Bush administration in 2001 and '02 when the U.S. overthrew the Taliban government in Afghanistan and brought President Hamid Karzai to power. That brief flowering of diplomatic contacts ended with former President George W. Bush labeling Iran as part of an "axis of evil" along with North Korea and Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7975291.stm
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