{"id":58050,"date":"2026-03-12T11:27:56","date_gmt":"2026-03-12T19:27:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=58050"},"modified":"2026-03-12T11:27:56","modified_gmt":"2026-03-12T19:27:56","slug":"does-the-47-year-war-with-iran-make-allowance-for-2001-and-2002","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2026\/03\/12\/does-the-47-year-war-with-iran-make-allowance-for-2001-and-2002\/","title":{"rendered":"Does the 47-Year War with Iran Make Allowance for 2001 and 2002?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Reprinted with permission from <a href=\"https:\/\/davidrhenderson.substack.com\/p\/does-the-47-year-war-with-iran-make\">David Henderson\u2019s Substack<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ve been reading many people on many sites claiming that we have been at war with Iran for 47 years. I found that odd because I thought I distinctly remembered good relations between the Iran and U.S. governments after 9\/11. So I asked ChatGPT, \u201cWhat did the Iranian government do in 2001 to help the U.S. government after the 9\/11 attacks?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I got a long answer that fit what I had vaguely remembered. Here it is:<\/p>\n<p>After the <strong>September 11, 2001 attacks<\/strong>, the Iranian government actually provided several forms of <strong>practical assistance to the United States and the emerging Afghan government<\/strong> in the campaign against the Taliban and al-Qaeda. This cooperation was limited and short-lived, but it was real and fairly significant in late 2001.<\/p>\n<p><strong>1. Intelligence sharing and operational cooperation<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Iran quietly cooperated with the United States during the early phase of the war in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Iranian officials met with U.S. diplomats in <strong>Geneva in late 2001<\/strong> to coordinate efforts against the Taliban.<\/li>\n<li>Iran helped <strong>identify Taliban targets<\/strong> and provided intelligence that assisted U.S. bombing campaigns.<\/li>\n<li>Iranian Revolutionary Guard elements working with anti-Taliban forces helped organize operations against Taliban positions.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Iran had strong reasons for this: the <strong>Taliban were a bitter enemy of Iran<\/strong>, especially after Taliban forces killed Iranian diplomats in Afghanistan in 1998.<\/p>\n<p><strong>2. Support for the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Before and after 9\/11, Iran backed the <strong>Northern Alliance<\/strong>, the main Afghan force fighting the Taliban.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Iran supplied the alliance with <strong>money, weapons, and training<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>When the U.S. began military operations in October 2001, the Northern Alliance served as the main ground force against the Taliban.<\/li>\n<li>Iranian networks helped facilitate cooperation between Northern Alliance commanders and U.S. forces.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>This assistance indirectly strengthened the U.S.-led campaign because Northern Alliance offensives, combined with U.S. airpower, rapidly toppled the Taliban government.<\/p>\n<p><strong>3. Direct assistance in the fall of Herat<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Iranian special-operations forces (the <strong>Quds Force<\/strong>) reportedly worked with anti-Taliban fighters in western Afghanistan.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>They helped organize an <strong>uprising in the city of Herat in November 2001<\/strong>, which helped drive out Taliban forces before U.S. troops arrived.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>4. Diplomatic help creating the new Afghan government<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Iran also played a constructive role in the <strong>Bonn Conference (December 2001)<\/strong>, which created the interim Afghan government after the Taliban collapsed.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Iranian diplomats pressured Afghan factions they influenced to accept compromises.<\/li>\n<li>They helped secure support for <strong>Hamid Karzai<\/strong> as the head of the new Afghan interim government.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Several U.S. officials later said Iran\u2019s role was <strong>instrumental in reaching the final agreement<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>5. Safety assurances and humanitarian cooperation<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Through back channels (mainly via Switzerland):<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Iran signaled it would <strong>help U.S. personnel who accidentally crossed into Iranian territory<\/strong> during operations near the Afghan border.<\/li>\n<li>It also cooperated on <strong>refugee and humanitarian issues<\/strong> involving Afghanistan.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Why the cooperation ended<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The brief cooperation collapsed in early 2002 after U.S. policy shifted. In <strong>January 2002<\/strong>, President <strong>George W. Bush <\/strong>labeled Iran part of the <strong>\u201cAxis of Evil.\u201d<\/strong> After that, diplomatic contacts largely stopped and relations deteriorated again. (Bold in original.)<\/p>\n<p>ChatGPT then said, \u201cIf you want, I can also tell you <strong>which U.S. officials later described this cooperation and how extensive they believed it was<\/strong>\u2014some of their accounts are surprisingly positive.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I said I did, and it listed James Dobbins, Ryan Crocker, Robert Gates, and Colin Powell, and quoted from each about how helpful Iran\u2019s government had been.<\/p>\n<p><em>David R. Henderson is an Emeritus Professor of Economics at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, a Research Fellow with the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, a Senior Fellow with Canada\u2019s Fraser Institute, and a Senior Fellow with the Independent Institute. He was previously a senior economist for health policy and for energy policy with President Reagan\u2019s Council of Economic Advisers.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Reprinted with permission from David Henderson\u2019s Substack. I\u2019ve been reading many people on many sites claiming that we have been at war with Iran for 47 years. I found that odd because I thought I distinctly remembered good relations between the Iran and U.S. governments after 9\/11. So I asked ChatGPT, \u201cWhat did the Iranian [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":695,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"coauthors":[1385],"class_list":["post-58050","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"0","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58050","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/695"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58050"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58050\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58111,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58050\/revisions\/58111"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58050"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=58050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}