Drug war may suffer under EU's Iran sanctions

updated 4:32 p.m. ET June 24, 2008

TEHRAN, Iran - Drug traffickers in well-armed desert convoys roll across the border from Afghanistan. Standing in their way are Iranian soldiers and drug agents trying to choke off one of the world's busiest pipelines for opium and heroin.

The battles — waged far from the world's attention in the arid badlands of eastern Iran — represent one of the dwindling patches of common ground between Tehran and the West. The United States has applauded Iran's anti-drug campaign and European nations help fund the fight.

But now this international support could be threatened by the standoff over Tehran's nuclear policies.

Western nations have told Iran that they could cut off any new help to Iran's anti-drug units unless the Islamic regime halts uranium enrichment, which Washington and its allies worry could be used to develop nuclear arms.

The warning was a small but potentially significant item tucked amid an array of trade and economic incentives seeking to sway Iranian leaders to strike a deal. Iran has not formally responded to the package, presented June 14 by the five permanent U.N. Security Council members plus Germany.

Won't back off uranium enrichment
But Iran has repeatedly said it will not back off uranium enrichment — pushing the European Union this week to expand sanctions.

The EU froze assets of Iran's largest bank and updated the blacklist of Iranian nuclear experts and companies, but has not yet decided on whether to trim its aid to Iran's anti-drug fight.

In response, Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman, Mohammad Ali Hosseini, said Tuesday that the "carrot and stick policy" by the 27-nation EU won't stop Iran's "pursuit to realize its nuclear rights."

The incentive package has been widely endorsed in the West as a way out of the impasse. But tying the drug battle to the offer could be counterproductive, some U.N. officials say.

A "heroin tsunami" could hit Europe if the drug interdiction by Iran is weakened, warned Antonio Maria Costa, the director of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime.

"We should definitely assist Iran in this respect," he said.

Roberto Arbitrio, head of the U.N. drugs and crime office in Iran, said the war on drugs should be viewed as "a non-political area of mutual interest."

The new stance is a sharp departure from the strong — but mostly behind-the-scenes — cooperation the United States and other Western countries forged with Iran on Afghanistan after the Taliban's fall in late 2001.

The West and Iran shared a common enemy in the Taliban, the Sunni extremist group that gave shelter to al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden before the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks and now continues to fight the U.S. military and NATO.

Little success in reducing poppy crop
Taliban fighters help finance their battles by taxing Afghanistan's opium farmers, whose poppies provide the raw material for heroin. The West has had little success reducing the huge opium crop in southern Afghanistan where the Taliban is strongest.

Overall opium production in Afghanistan has more than doubled in the last four years — and smuggling the drug into Iran is the first step toward reaching Western markets. Afghanistan produced 93 percent of the world's opium last year, and about 50 percent of the drugs leaving the country flowed through Iran, the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime says.

"Cooperating with Iran in Afghanistan on this and other issues is not a favor we do for Iran — but something we need to do in our own interest," said Barnett Rubin, an expert on Afghanistan at New York University.

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