For Iran, I can be a little less confident, because the U.S. and Iran have made a few efforts toward rapprochement since 1979 which have always died in infancy. The rest of the efforts have been ‘not made’, so to speak. I am sure that Iran very carefully considers that they have U.S. troop deployments on either side of their borders. In my opinion, which is not terribly expert, Iran's increasing defense expenditures partly stem from this, and that is a factor the U.S. may not have considered fully when entering Iraq. And it certainly seems to me that Afghanistan could be an issue in which Iran and the U.S. have enough common interests to work together. However, this begins to go a little past Central Asia so I will not say any more.

The Panj River bridge does not have much present utility but if Afghanistan can get a legal economy running it will be of benefit to both nations. Big projects such as this are value-neutral in that they help everyone, legal and illegal, but are more necessary to legal trade than the illegal kind. For instance, if Afghanistan could sell produce like apples or grapes in Tajikistan, then it will benefit the product's suppliers and consumers to have a smooth road across. The bridge's aim is largely aspirational at this point (and a headache for Tajik border patrol attempting morphine interdiction). Vadim has written some great stuff on this bridge over at NewEurasia.net. He does a great job over there, as do most of the neweurasia gang.
Thanks for the great comments,
Bonnie

It is always a pleasure o read your posts. As I said before they are never dull and never leave me impartial to the issues you discuss here.

So in a way my comments are there result of inspiration (if I can call it that way) which comes from reading your material.

BTW: thanks for mentioning my blog. I will try to post my ideas more often there.

Regarding the importance of Afghanistan to the West: Do you think the strategic importance of Afghanistan has military implications (i.e. establishing a foothold in Central Asia)?

If yes then what do you think are the major drivers? Being close to China or surrounding Iran? With plans to withdraw troops from Iraq the latter seems less likely. But again from a purely practical point of view choosing Afghanistan as a foothold is a bit risky given the country's turbulent past (and present).

There are a lot of bits and pieces of mozaic that at this moment do not quite make sense. The US has built a multi-million dollar bridge between Afghanistan and Tajikistan recently and I am clueless about the true present utility of the bridge to the US. For Tajikistan it sure is a good development (again anything that makes it economically independent is)… But I wonder what beef US has got in this thing..

Any thoughts, speculations?

Also, it points out the strategic importance of Afghanistan to the West.

A very informed comment. I also checked out your blog, which has some very interesting articles well worth perusal by other readers.

Please write in again.
Sincerely,
Bonnie

If Tajikistan wants to sell its energy abroad (most profitable business is delivering power through afghanistan to Pakistan) then it needs to partner up with a country that can guarantee the security of its transmission lines in the southern neighbor.

But Tajikistan has been caught up in Moscow imperialistic games, for which the country pays a really high toll. Refusing to pursue its own economic freedom the country brings its own doomsday one step closer.