Comment by Riaz Haq on September 5, 2021 at 7:48am

#Pakistan seizes chance to be #Europe’s best buddy in #Afghan crisis. Foreign ministers of #Germany, the #Netherlands and the #UK all visited #Islamabad. They made promises of prompt cash to Pakistani coffers for its assistance in the #humanitarian crisis https://www.politico.eu/article/afghanistan-pakistan-europe-crisis-...

Germany's Ambassador to Pakistan Bernhard Schlagheck said it would not have been possible to fly out German and Dutch staff without Islamabad's assistance, while Pakistan also received friendly calls from EU Council President Charles Michel, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, the Austrians, and the Slovenes, who currently hold the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU.

This newfound affection for Pakistan is a significant shift in the diplomatic tides from this spring when the EU had eyes only for Pakistan's arch-enemy India. In April, the EU committed to an Indo-Pacific strategy that is meant to see increased European cooperation with India against (Pakistan's ally) China. In May, Brussels also launched free-trade talks with New Delhi.

The Taliban's return in Kabul now gives Pakistan a prime opportunity to put itself back in the game. It is using the attention to try to rebrand its image internationally, and leverage its position as the main destination for Afghan refugees to exact concessions for its own priorities like economic aid, trade incentives, freer travel to Europe, and diplomatic support for the disputed region of Kashmir.

The overtures come at a crucial time, as both Pakistan and Europe are contending with the U.S.'s retreat from the region. Washington has long been Pakistan's chief supplier of arms and aid as it sought Pakistan's help in Afghanistan, but as that relationship soured — especially as Pakistan provided aid to the Afghan Taliban even as the group targeted U.S. forces — Islamabad is looking to invest in other relationships. Europe, which was caught flat-footed by the U.S.'s decision to withdraw, must now secure its own interests in the region without American help.

Friends in need
Before the Afghan crisis, Pakistan was not popular in Brussels. The conservative Islamic country was routinely bashed for its human rights record and its duplicitous conduct in Afghanistan, where it simultaneously supported both NATO and the Taliban forces. While the EU is a major trading partner for Pakistan, the South Asian country is way down the EU's priority list.

But all that has changed since the Taliban took over Afghanistan last month, leaving European countries desperate to repatriate their citizens.


Islamabad has underlined its role in helping European and foreign officials leave Kabul, including 294 Dutch citizens, 201 Belgians, 216 Italians, and 273 Danes. In addition, Pakistan is also helping evacuate more than 4,000 Afghan nationals who worked with the U.S. and allied forces in Kabul. The country was able to do so because of its strong ties to the Taliban, which allowed it to continue flights and keep its embassy open, even as most countries were scrambling to leave the country.

"We have tremendous admiration and respect for Pakistan and we would like to reiterate our gratitude," Dutch Foreign Minister Sigrid Kaag said at a press conference in Islamabad on Wednesday.

U.K. Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, who was in the capital the next day, announced that the U.K. was sending teams to Afghanistan's neighbors, including Pakistan, to help process arrivals from Afghanistan and repatriate them to the U.K. He also announced that the U.K. was immediately sending £30 million to Afghanistan's neighbors, Pakistan chief among them, to help them deal with the humanitarian crisis.

"Pakistan is a vital partner for the U.K." Raab said.

Comment by Riaz Haq on September 10, 2021 at 7:55am

"The evidence is inadequate to justify the notion that Pakistan acted as a spoiler to US efforts in Afghanistan, nor did it need to act as one even if it had so desired."

https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/southasiasource/the-us-pakist...

Now that the American venture into Afghanistan is coming to be seen by some as a serious strategic failure, there is a strong temptation for US policymakers to find something, or someone, to blame. Just as Cambodia was the scapegoat for a botched war in Vietnam, neighboring countries to the Afghan conflict present a convenient target. The objective of this piece is not to assign blame on any one party or country for recent developments in Afghanistan, but to shed light on some important gaps in ongoing coverage of the issue.

Pakistan has been seen and treated as an unreliable ally by the United States in the War on Terror over the last two decades. However, channeling frustration and anger towards Pakistan now would be another strategic misstep at this crucial point in time for the region. Since taking office, President Biden has yet to speak to his Pakistani counterpart, Prime Minister Imran Khan. This cold shoulder has not gone unnoticed in Islamabad. Pakistan nonetheless has decided to move on clear-eyed with its strategy to stabilize Afghanistan. Herein lies the problem: the less that Washington engages with Pakistan, the more disconnected it will be from the region and the weaker its influence will be on the situation’s outcome. Any space that the United States cedes, whether in its relationship with a new Afghan government or with Pakistan, will be filled chiefly by China, and to some extent Iran and Russia.

Furthermore, US policymakers have turned a blind eye to the negative impact of an unstable Afghanistan on Pakistan. The country has lost approximately 83,000 civilians in the War on Terror, and estimates show that it has cost Pakistan’s economy $126 billion dollars. In contrast, the much touted $6 billion dollars in aid it has received from Washington is seen as a pittance by Pakistani civilians and policy makers alike. Between 1995 and 2020, over 500 suicide bomb attacks shook Pakistani cities, drastically reducing both the security environment and the average Pakistani’s quality of life. However, the armed forces demonstrated remarkable resilience in tackling this issue, greatly reducing the number of attacks and clearing the former FATA from the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). The return of the Afghan Taliban is not a boon for Islamabad—it puts at serious risk the hard-fought stability that Pakistan has achieved in recent years.

What has largely evaded media coverage is the construction of a massive border fence along Pakistan’s formerly porous border with Afghanistan, at a cost of over $500 million USD. The fence, now 90% complete, stretches along the whole Pak-Afghan border, spanning the equivalent distance from New York to Denver. The border boasts a double-barbed wire fence, infrared cameras, and an additional 1,000 forts along the frontier. The “safe haven” argument is thus past its expiration date: there is no longer anarchic freedom of movement between Pakistan and Afghanistan as commonly described.

At present, there are about 1.4 million registered Afghan refugees in Pakistan. There are about another 1.5 million unregistered Afghan refugees there as well, in a country with a fragile economy and strained public infrastructure. In a recent interview with the BBC, British General Sir Nick Carter acknowledged that with the large influx of refugees, it was nearly impossible for Pakistan to be able to identify Taliban sympathizers from among the throngs of displaced Afghans. Indications to the contrary may be seen more as incompetence rather than nefarious intentions.

Comment by Riaz Haq on September 10, 2021 at 10:40am

"IN THEIR VERY first exchange after 9/11, Pakistan’s most senior leaders urged their American counterparts not to invade Afghanistan. Instead, they said, consider targeted action against al-Qaeda" #Afghanistan #US #Pakistan @LodhiMaleeha @P_Musharraf https://www.economist.com/by-invitation/2021/09/09/maleeha-lodhi-on...

This By-invitation commentary is part of a series by global thinkers on the future of American power, examining the forces shaping the country's global standing. Read more here.

IN THEIR VERY first exchange after 9/11, Pakistan’s most senior leaders urged their American counterparts not to invade Afghanistan. Instead, they said, consider targeted action against al-Qaeda. In several high-level meetings that I attended then as Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States, Pakistani officials gave warning that military action would not work. America should distinguish between al-Qaeda, the group responsible for the terror attacks, and the Taliban, who needed to be engaged.

Comment by Riaz Haq on September 12, 2021 at 10:11am

Taliban rolls out red carpet to China's Belt and Road Initiative - Nikkei Asia


https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/International-relations/Afghanista...

KARACHI -- With the U.S. departed in disarray, Afghanistan's newly ensconced Taliban regime is looking to China for major investments in the coming six months, but experts expect Beijing to tread a very cautious line.

Zabiullah Mujahid, the Taliban spokesperson, said earlier this week that the new government wants to join the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, or CPEC, the flagship $50 billion Pakistan component of China's Belt and Road Initiative.

A source with close links to the Taliban told Nikkei Asia on condition of anonymity that China has been courting the Taliban since 2018 on possible projects in Afghanistan. "There are verbal agreements between Beijing and Taliban about investments," he said. "Once the Taliban government gains global recognition, China will start building infrastructure projects in war-torn Afghanistan."

On Wednesday, a virtual meeting of the foreign ministers of Afghanistan's neighbors -- China, Iran, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Pakistan -- was hosted by Shah Mehmood Qureshi, Pakistan's foreign minister.

"The situation in Afghanistan remains complex and fluid," Qureshi later tweeted. "We hope the political situation stabilizes leading to normalcy soon. The new reality requires us to discard old lenses, develop new insights and proceed with a realistic, pragmatic approach," he said.

During the meeting, China promised emergency aid of $31 million to Afghanistan, including grain, winter supplies, vaccines and medicines. "What China can do now is maintain necessary contacts with the Taliban in the fields of normal economic activities and people-to-people exchanges," reported Global Times, Beijing's English-language mouthpiece.

Andrew Small, a senior trans-Atlantic fellow with the Asia program at the German Marshall Fund, believes the Taliban's immediate investment requests give China leverage. Beijing will provide some immediate economic support, but proceed to greater involvement more gingerly.

"Beijing will be happy to dangle promises and engage in talks on the BRI and CPEC extensions, but will not move ahead with anything on the ground until they are confident of political and security conditions," Small told Nikkei.

Experts note the Taliban's limited investor choices. "It is to be expected that China would be willing to help the Taliban government after the U.S. pulled out of a region that is too important for China to leave alone," Hasaan Khawar, a public policy analyst in Islamabad, told Nikkei.

China is well aware of Afghanistan's vast mineral resources that include the Mes Aynak copper mine, which is reputed to be the second-largest in the world in terms of reserved volume. China Metallurgical Group bought the exploration lease on the massive deposit in 2008 for $3 billion, but work has been stalled for more than a decade because of security concerns. The idle mine is a salutary reminder to China of how big investments can easily fail in such an unstable setting.

"Copper is essential for electric wiring, electronic products, motors and many other products manufactured in China," Jeremy Garlick, assistant professor of international relations at the University of Economics in Prague, told Nikkei. "The Chinese will not rush to put their heads in the lion's mouth -- I would expect them to weigh any decision to get more deeply involved in Afghanistan carefully."

The problem of militancy and the use of Afghan soil as a launchpad for global terrorism is the biggest concern for the global community, including China. Experts believe that unless the Taliban controls this problem, China will be unable to invest -- however much it wants to.

Comment by Riaz Haq on September 12, 2021 at 4:25pm

#China, #Pakistan offer aid to #Taliban as West hesitates. Both of them have already sent planeloads of supplies to the country and are willing to send more. Joining #CPEC offers a pathway to economic viability for #Afghanistan. https://www.axios.com/china-pakistan-afhganistan-aid-b9a14fce-e092-...


As Western nations debate how best to provide humanitarian aid to Afghanistan without enriching the Taliban, China and Pakistan have already sent planeloads of supplies to the country and are willing to send more, Reuters reports.

Why it matters: Afghanistan is mired in a humanitarian and economic crisis, and China and Pakistan's willingness to help could draw Afghanistan closer into those countries' orbits.

State of play: Both China and Pakistan have signaled a willingness to increase their engagement with Afghanistan, Reuters noted.

China announced last week that it intends to send $31 million worth of grain, winter supplies medicine, and 3 million COVID-19 vaccines, Al Jazeera reported.
Meanwhile Pakistan last week sent a shipment of supplies, including cooking oil and medicine, while its foreign minister called for Afghanistan's assets to be unfrozen, according to Reuters.
The big picture: The United Nations Development Programme warned last week that Afghanistan is approaching universal poverty, and the Afghani currency has plummeted in value since the Taliban took power last month.

The Biden administration froze access to Afghanistan's central bank reserves, and the International Monetary Fund and World Bank have suspended funding in the country.
Between the lines: The Taliban victory is a strategic win for Pakistan, which long assisted the group and harbored its leaders.

China has some concerns about the group's rise to power but also sees economic opportunity in the form of Afghanistan's $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits, Bloomberg reported.
“China is our most important partner and represents a fundamental and extraordinary opportunity for us,” Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said recently, according to NBC News. “It is ready to invest and rebuild our country.”
It is possible that Afghanistan will join the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

"The new administration in Kabul would also be receptive to this and they are keen on it," Mushahid Hussain Sayed, a Pakistani senator and former chairman of the China-Pakistan Institute, told Reuters.
China's Belt and Road initiative also offers a pathway to "economic viability," Reuters noted.

Comment by Riaz Haq on September 13, 2021 at 7:52am

#Pakistan commercial passenger flight takes off from #Kabul for #Islamabad, marking the start of first scheduled #international flight operations from #Afghanistan -Reuters witness https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/pakistan-commercial-pass...

Comment by Riaz Haq on September 14, 2021 at 2:26pm

Key Concerns Persuade US, Pakistan to Maintain Links
By Anwar Iqbal
Washington, DC


https://www.pakistanlink.org//Opinion/2021/Sep21/10/12.HTM

Two key concerns – losing a nuclear-armed country to China and having no influence over the Taliban — prevent the Biden administration from moving further away from Pakistan, shows a set of documents leaked to the media.
The Politico — a news outlet that covers the US capital city – published a report on Friday on messages exchanged between Washington and Islamabad recently.
The messages also show that “the Biden administration is quietly pressing Pakistan to cooperate on fighting terrorist groups such as ISIS and Al Qaeda in the wake of the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan,” the report claimed.
The messages show that Washington sees Pakistan as “a nation with links to the Afghan Taliban whose cooperation on fighting terrorism can be helpful. It’s also a nuclear-armed country American officials would prefer not to lose entirely to the Chinese influence,” the report added.
In response, Pakistan “has hinted that Islamabad deserves more public recognition of its role in helping people now fleeing Afghanistan, even as it has downplayed fears of what Taliban rule of the country could mean,” the report adds.
On Wednesday, US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland included Pakistan on a list of countries that provided “critical support” to US evacuation efforts. “We are enormously grateful” to these countries, who have helped transit Americans and others to safety.” Previous US statements had omitted Pakistan.
The exchanges between the US and Pakistan “suggest that the two governments are far from lockstep on the road ahead, even now that the United States has pulled its troops from Afghanistan,” Politico observed.
In one discussion with a US official, Pakistan’s Ambassador Asad Majeed Khan appeared to question reports that the Taliban were carrying out revenge attacks in Afghanistan.
Quoting Pakistani “ground observations,” Ambassador Khan told the US officials that the Afghan Taliban “were not seeking retribution, and in fact they were going home to home to assure Afghans that there will not be reprisals.”
The US official, Ervin Massinga of the State Department, however, said that “he has seen reports to the contrary and hopes the Taliban do not seek revenge.”
The leaked documents include messages from the US Embassy, Islamabad, telling Washington that they were “being strained by the Afghan refugee crisis” and seeking guidance on how to deal with the situation.
The meeting between Mr Massinga and Ambassador Khan took place on August 26, the day that some 170 Afghans and 13 US troops were killed in a bombing at the Kabul airport. US officials have blamed the attack on the militant Islamic State group, seen as a rival of the Afghan Taliban.
An official description of the meeting shows that Ambassador Khan offered condolences and the use of Pakistani medical facilities. The US official, however, suggested that Pakistan could help on other fronts.
“Acknowledging the tragedy, Mr Massinga underscored the mutual interest Pakistan and the United States have in targeting ISIS and Al Qaeda.” In response, Ambassador Khan “acknowledged ISIS was a common enemy for the Taliban as well.”
Mr Massinga expressed appreciation for Pakistan’s role in helping evacuees get out of Afghanistan, according to the meeting notes. The portions seen by POLITICO did not specify exactly what Pakistan was doing.
At one point in the talk, however, Ambassador “Khan intimated the Pakistani government would also appreciate public acknowledgment for the country’s assistance on the evacuation front.” An August 20 statement of gratitude from Blinken to several countries for their help in the evacuations did not mention Pakistan.

Comment by Riaz Haq on September 14, 2021 at 4:17pm

The Biden administration has been unusually circumspect about revealing its contacts and discussions with Pakistan. While Pakistan’s actions often appear at odds with the United States, it nonetheless is a nation with links to the Afghan Taliban whose cooperation on fighting terrorism can be helpful. It’s also a nuclear-armed country American officials would prefer not to lose entirely to Chinese influence.

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/09/02/us-pakistan-afghan-crisis-...


In the past month, as the Taliban made rapid gains across Afghanistan, Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke directly only once to Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, according to what’s been made public by the State Department. Readouts of these diplomatic calls are usually so bland as to be useless to observers and the press, but this one, from Aug. 16, was unusually devoid of detail.

About a week earlier, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin spoke with Pakistan’s Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa. Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, met with his Pakistani counterpart, Moeed Yusuf, in late July — a meeting confirmed via a Sullivan tweet but no White House readout.

“It’s clear that the Biden administration from the top levels seems to have pretty deep reservations about Pakistan, born of years of experience, and is not willing to either give Pakistan a pass or kudos for anything that Pakistan might like,” said Daniel Markey, a South Asia specialist who served at the State Department from 2003 to 2007.

In the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, as the United States invaded Afghanistan to topple the Taliban regime at the time, U.S. officials leaned on Pakistan for help. Pakistan cooperated to some degree, especially in late 2001, but critics say it has played a double game ever since.

---

Former officials say that, among other reasons for its support, Pakistan sees the Afghan Taliban as a partner in any future fight against rival India. Pakistan also helped deliver Afghan Taliban leaders to peace talks with the United States and the now-fallen Afghan government, even as Islamabad has long officially dismissed the idea that it actively supports the Afghan Taliban.

Pakistan has been more helpful to the United States in its fight against Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups, but even that cooperation has been questioned. It was in Abbottabad, Pakistan, after all, that the United States found and killed Al Qaeda chief and Sept. 11 mastermind Osama bin Laden in 2011. The Pakistani government denied knowing he was there.

That said, Pakistani help in tracking down and targeting terrorist targets in Afghanistan now that the U.S. has withdrawn troops would be “useful, if you can get it,” a former senior U.S. diplomat said. Getting humanitarian aid to Afghanistan in the future may require using supply lines that run through Pakistan, the former diplomat added.

The Afghan Taliban’s triumph in August may not prove a long-term victory for Pakistan. The win has emboldened groups like the Pakistani Taliban, who have long used terrorist attacks and other means to try to overthrow the Pakistani government. The refugee crisis sparked by the Taliban’s victory in Afghanistan, too, is sure to test Pakistan, which already hosted numerous people displaced from the neighboring country.

The meeting between Massinga and Khan took place on Aug. 26, the day that some 170 Afghans and 13 U.S. troops were killed in a bombing at the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, which the U.S. was using to help evacuate at-risk Afghans, Americans and others. U.S. officials blamed the attack, which also wounded many people, on ISIS-K, an offshoot of the Islamic State terrorist organization and a rival of the Afghan Taliban.

----
“Acknowledging the tragedy, Massinga underscored the mutual interest Pakistan and the United States have in targeting ISIS-K and al-Qa’ida,” the description states. In response, the Pakistani ambassador “acknowledged ISIS-K was a common enemy for the Taliban as well.”

Comment by Riaz Haq on September 16, 2021 at 7:54am

The U.S.-Pakistan Relationship Needs a Rethink
By The Editors | Bloomberg

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/the-us-pakistan-relationshi...

Now that U.S. forces have withdrawn, Washington should rethink this toxic relationship. It remains true that ignoring or isolating Pakistan would be unwise; continued cooperation on intelligence and overflight rights could greatly help in keeping tabs on terrorist groups in Afghanistan. But hopes of a broader partnership should finally be suspended. Policy toward Pakistan should be narrowly targeted, largely transactional and focused resolutely on U.S. interests.

Those interests include, primarily, limiting the twin threats of terrorism and nuclear proliferation. Some cooperation on the first should still be possible. Pakistan doesn’t want to see a resurgence of al-Qaeda or the Islamic State offshoot in Afghanistan, while the U.S. should be open to helping Islamabad counter the so-called Pakistani Taliban. Still, the U.S. would be wise to pursue possible basing arrangements in the Central Asian states, where it would be freer to target groups with closer links to the Pakistani spy services.

Rather than struggling to incentivize better behavior in other areas, the U.S. should use sticks as necessary. Sanctions should be levied against Pakistani generals and spies conclusively linked to extremist groups. Any proliferation of nuclear technology or weapons should prompt far more extensive penalties. The Biden administration should also block efforts to remove Pakistan from the Financial Action Task Force “gray list” until the country demonstrates that it’s truly cracking down on terrorist financing and the flow of jihadists into Afghanistan. And the U.S. should exert economic leverage by insisting that Pakistan fully meet International Monetary Fund conditions to resume its bailout package.

Similarly, while Pakistan will only go so far to moderate the Taliban’s behavior, pressure is more likely to get results than pleas. If Pakistani leaders truly want the U.S. to ease its financial stranglehold over the Taliban and prevent the Afghan economy from collapsing, for instance, they should use their influence to ensure the Taliban allow vulnerable Afghans to emigrate, humanitarian aid to flow, and women to study and work.

More generally, the U.S. should stop granting Pakistan special treatment. The fiction that Pakistan is a “major non-NATO ally” should finally be abandoned. This rebalancing should be dispassionate, not spiteful — indeed, the U.S. should continue to support Pakistani civil society, including by funding health, education and climate initiatives, and should lead global efforts to cushion the blow of any refugee exodus from Afghanistan. In the long run, both countries will benefit from a more honest, clear-eyed approach. Meanwhile, the U.S. would be better off investing less in a relationship whose fruits have been so bitter.

Editorials are written by the Bloomberg Opinion editorial board.

Comment by Riaz Haq on September 16, 2021 at 12:57pm

The #US War on Terror Was Corrupt From the Start. Look under the hood of the “good war,” and this (#corruption) is what you see. #WarOnTerror #Afghanistan #Ghani #Karazi #Taliban #contractors https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/13/opinion/afghanistan-war-economy....

The war in Afghanistan wasn’t a failure. It was a massive success — for those who made a fortune off it.

Consider the case of Hikmatullah Shadman, who was just a teenager when American Special Forces rolled into Kandahar on the heels of Sept. 11. They hired him as an interpreter, paying him up to $1,500 a month — 20 times the salary of a local police officer, according to a profile of him in The New Yorker. By his late 20s, he owned a trucking company that supplied U.S. military bases, earning him more than $160 million.

If a small fry like Shadman could get so rich off the war on terror, imagine how much Gul Agha Sherzai, a big-time warlord-turned-governor, has raked in since he helped the C.I.A. run the Taliban out of town. His large extended family supplied everything from gravel to furniture to the military base in Kandahar. His brother controlled the airport. Nobody knows how much he is worth, but it is clearly hundreds of millions — enough for him to talk about a $40,000 shopping spree in Germany as if he were spending pocket change.

Look under the hood of the “good war,” and this is what you see. Afghanistan was supposed to be an honorable war to neutralize terrorists and rescue girls from the Taliban. It was supposed to be a war that we woulda coulda shoulda won, had it not been for the distraction of Iraq and the hopeless corruption of the Afghan government. But let’s get real. Corruption wasn’t a design flaw in the war. It was a design feature. We didn’t topple the Taliban. We paid warlords bags of cash to do it.

As the nation-building project got underway, those warlords were transformed into governors, generals and members of Parliament, and the cash payments kept flowing.

“Westerners often scratched their heads at the persistent lack of capacity in Afghan governing institutions,” Sarah Chayes, a former special assistant to U.S. military leaders in Kandahar, wrote recently in Foreign Affairs. “But the sophisticated networks controlling those institutions never intended to govern. Their objective was self-enrichment. And at that task, they proved spectacularly successful.”

Instead of a nation, what we really built were more than 500 military bases — and the personal fortunes of the people who supplied them. That had always been the deal. In April 2002, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld dictated a top-secret memo ordering aides to come up with “a plan for how we are going to deal with each of these warlords — who is going to get money from whom, on what basis, in exchange for what, what is the quid pro quo, etc.,” according to The Washington Post.

The war proved enormously lucrative for many Americans and Europeans, too. One 2008 study estimated that some 40 percent of the money allocated to Afghanistan went back to donor countries in corporate profits and consultant salaries. Only about 12 percent of U.S. reconstruction assistance given to Afghanistan between 2002 and 2021 actually went to the Afghan government. Much of the rest went to companies like the Louis Berger Group, a New Jersey-based construction firm that got a $1.4 billion contract to build schools, clinics and roads. Even after it got caught bribing officials and systematically overbilling taxpayers, the contracts kept coming.

“It’s a bugbear of mine that Afghan corruption is so frequently cited as an explanation (as well as an excuse) for Western failure in Afghanistan,” Jonathan Goodhand, a professor in conflict and development studies at SOAS University of London, wrote me in an email. Americans “point the finger at Afghans, whilst ignoring their role in both fueling and benefiting from the patronage pump.”

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