Afghan President Hamid Karzai visits Iran

While the Bush administration continues to beat their chests like school yard bullys when it comes to Iran their hand picked Afghan president was visiting as Kabul turns to Tehran .

Afghan President Hamid Karzai is making his first official visit out of the country since taking presidential office in early December. He is leading a high-level delegation to Iran for two days that includes the ministers of the interior, finance and economy, as well as the minister for refugees.

Karzai and President Mohammad Khatami were set to inaugurate the Doqarun-Herat road on Thursday. The 122 kilometer road will link the Doqarun border region in northeastern Iran with the western Afghan city of Herat. The Iranian Embassy in Kabul said Karzai and Khatami would also open a newly completed power transmission line running from Torbat-e Jam in northeastern Iran to Herat, as well as eight border stations constructed by Iran in Afghanistan's Herat, Nimruz and Farah provinces.

Iran is working on several other reconstruction projects in Afghanistan. Media in December reported the opening of the first Iranian bank (Ariyan Bank) in Kabul. Iran and Afghanistan are also cooperating in the fight against the trafficking of drugs from Afghanistan.

Colonel Christopher Langton, who heads the defense analysis department at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, said Iran is an important country in the future reconstruction and development of Afghanistan.

Since the US left abandoned Afghanistan to pursue it's deadly folly in Iraq Karzai has been forced to go elsewhere for help to rebuild the country. I wonder what an Iran/Afghanistan alliance does to the neocons strategy.