Iranian Bribes? They Gonna Come Talk to Me About Iranian Bribes? In Afghanistan?
Hamid Karzai responds to allegations that his chief of staff is the beneficiary of large Iranian bribes:
Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Monday that once or twice a year Iran gives his office $700,000 to $975,000 for official presidential expenses – and that Washington also provides “bags of money” because his office lacks funds. Karzai’s comments come a day after The New York Times reported that Iran was giving bags of cash to the Afghan president’s chief of staff, Umar Daudzai, to buy his loyalty and promote Iranian interests in Afghanistan.
On a serious note, Iran and Afghanistan are adjacent to one another and a large number of Afghans—including Hamid Karzai—speak a version of the Persian language. The United States and Iran have a decades-long grudge match mostly over events that transpired in the Carter and Eisenhower administrations. It would be exceptionally foolish for the government of Afghanistan to deal with Teheran primarily through the lens of that dispute.
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