Border and Drugs

America’s Border Problems Nothing Compared to Iran’s

America’s problems along its border with Mexico are nothing compared with Iran’s border with its neighbors. Last year the Iranian Interior Minister had to warn neighboring Pakistan and Afghanistan that Iranian military forces would cross into their countries if necessary, to repel the insurgents who have been killing Iranian border guards. The New York Times reported that their shared border cuts straight through the Sunni tribal area of Baluchistan, which has been volatile for the past 15 years. In the past decade more than 3,000 Iranian border guards have been killed in gun battles with drug-smuggling gangs, but in recent years the fighting has grown more sectarian. Read the entire New York Times article here.

An Iranian border guard posted on the border with Baluchistan.

In his report for World Politics Review Arif Rafiq said that tensions between Iran and Pakistan have increased since Pakistani-based Sunni militants have attacked Iranian government installations and personnel in Baluchistan. In response, Tehran threatened cross-border raids in Pakistan if Islamabad failed to act against militants targeting Iran, and then followed through, killing one Pakistani paramilitary officer late last year. Read Arif Rafiq’s article in World Politics Reviewhere.

Afghan farmers collecting raw opium.

Flare-ups along the Iran-Pakistan border, which spans the ethnic area of Baluchistan, are not new, and when they happen, both Tehran and Islamabad often work quickly to resolve them. Iranian and Pakistani diplomats met in Islamabad, where they agreed to “maintain a tranquil Pakistan-Iran border.” But with terrorist attacks against Shiites resurgent in Pakistan as well as the Middle East, particularly in Iraq and Syria, and in light of Islamabad’s recent tilt toward Riyadh, there is some risk that Tehran could step up intelligence and military operations in Pakistan. A more aggressive posture from Tehran may lead to tit-for-tat attacks with broader political and economic implications.

Iran has the world’s highest number of drug addicts (per capita), with over two million people addicted to illegal drugs.

Anti-narcotics and medical officials say more than 2.2 million of Iran’s 80 million citizens are addicted to illegal drugs, including 1.3 million who are registered in treatment programs. They say the numbers keep rising annually, even though use of the death penalty against convicted smugglers has increased, too, and now accounts for more than nine of every ten executions. Parviz Afshar, an anti-narcotics official, said for every meth lab they detect, two more spring up, often involving small-scale “cooks” operating in residences where production is particularly hard to detect. He said police found and destroyed at least 416 meth labs in the 12-month period up to March, up from 350 in the previous 12-month period.

Wikipedia reports that the majority of drug users in Iran are addicted to opium. Iran produces almost none of its own opium; the opium is brought into the country from neighbor Afghanistan. In 2006, over 53 percent of the opium produced in Afghanistan left the country through Iran. Several measures have been taken by the Iranian authorities to combat drug trafficking. This includes increasing the number of police forces on the southeastern border of Iran and introducing severe laws and penalties for people found guilty of drug trafficking.