Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s last-minute trip to Kabul, Afghanistan, on Monday had a loud ring of deja vu. Over three years ago, Secretary of State John Kerry flew to Afghanistan in a harried attempt to resolve a bitter political impasse between the country’s two top politicians, Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah. Kerry managed to cobble together an agreement that allowed both men to save face and claim victory — Ghani received the presidency, and Abdullah was offered the newly created post of chief executive officer. Sure, the national unity government didn’t accomplish much. But at least Afghanistan didn’t descend into all-out civil war.
Pompeo had no such luck with his trip this week. Despite eight hours of shuttle diplomacy and conversations with both camps, Pompeo flew out of Kabul frustrated with the lack of progress and disgusted with how selfish Ghani and Abdullah were acting. Hours later, Pompeo expressed just how displeased he was in a terse statement that announced an immediate $1 billion reduction in U.S. assistance and the possibility of another $1 billion cut in 2021. The failure to reach a power-sharing accord, Pompeo wrote, “has harmed U.S.-Afghan relations and, sadly, dishonors those Afghan, Americans, and Coalition partners who have sacrificed their lives and treasure in the struggle to build a new future for this country.”
Ghani assured the Afghan people that everything is hunky-dory and that the U.S. aid cut won’t harm the economic and social well-being of the country. Such an assertion, of course, is total nonsense — and Ghani knows it. The Afghan government is dependent on the goodwill of foreign donors for pretty much every line item in its national budget. John Sopko, the longtime special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction, testified to Congress last January that foreign donors make up 75% of Kabul’s total public expenditures. His latest quarterly report to Congress is authoritative evidence of just how reliant the Afghans are on foreign assistance and U.S. taxpayer money in particular.
Between 2002 and 2019, Washington has appropriated $137 billion for Afghanistan’s reconstruction, including $34 billion in governance, over $11 billion for civilian operations, and approximately $9 billion for counternarcotics programs. In fiscal year 2019, the United States spent over $157 million on fuel for the Afghan army and national police and over $98 million for ammunition on behalf of the Afghan Air Force. For a country whose most profitable overseas export is opium, Afghanistan will go belly up financially if the U.S. and other foreign donors in the West decide to reevaluate their spending priorities.
Like most Americans, President Trump is justifiably sick and tired of the war in Afghanistan. He wants to pull U.S. troops out and stop investing lives and taxpayer money into a country that is dirt-poor, unable to sustain itself, and largely run by a group of warlords and kleptocrats. Pompeo’s statement, however, suggests that the aid cuts could be reassessed in the event that Ghani and Abdullah stop acting like children and arrive at a compromise settlement about how ministries will be divided up and how the chain of command will be structured. In other words, the $1 billion reduction is more an ultimatum to pressure Afghan politicians into a political deal and less a genuine commitment to wean Kabul off of U.S. support.
The question the Trump administration has to ask itself is whether the Afghan government, perpetually fighting itself as often as it fights the Taliban, is deserving of continued U.S. military and financial support regardless. At what point will Washington cut the tap? Or is the U.S. destined to be Afghanistan’s piggyback and security provider for the next 100 years?
Daniel DePetris (@DanDePetris) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. His opinions are his own.
