USA TODAY International Edition
Drug trade looms over Taliban deal
Afghanistan’s opium is ‘ cash cow for terrorists’
WASHINGTON – The Trump administration says it’s on the brink of signing a deal with the Taliban that could pave the way for an end to America’s longest war.
But despite the zeal to reach a political settlement with the militant Afghan group, the White House has neglected to address a major source of instability in the country – opium production – a government watchdog says.
The Trump administration does not have a counternarcotics strategy for Afghanistan, the special investigator who oversees U. S. spending in Afghanistan has found, even though that country is the source for 90% of the world’s heroin and the Afghan drug trade fuels a deadly insurgency against American troops.
The drug trade is the Taliban’s cash cow. It finances the Islamic fundamen
talist group’s fighters and pays for the bombs and weapons used to kill U. S. and Afghan security forces. Some fear that if the opium trade is not snuffed out, any U. S.- brokered peace deal could unravel – and Afghanistan could once again become a haven for terrorists.
“It’s important that the United States have a clear, robust counternarcotics strategy in Afghanistan, because its drug trade constitutes a highrisk threat to our reconstruction and security goals there,” John Sopko, special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction, said in a statement to USA TODAY. “Afghanistan’s opium trade undermines our goals in several ways – by financing insurgent groups, fueling government corruption, eroding the legitimacy of the Afghan government, and exacting a devastating human and financial toll.”
Richard Olson, a former State Department special representative for Afghanistan, said the problem must be part of the talks going forward.
“The substantial revenue stream from narcotics production, which mostly flows to the Taliban right now, is actually one of the main drivers of the conflict,” Olson said at a Feb. 18 forum on the emerging U. S.- Taliban deal. “And so it is absolutely an issue that will have to be addressed.”
Olson, a senior adviser with the U. S. Institute of Peace, expressed hope that Taliban and Afghan officials will determine how to deal with that problem in their negotiations, which are set to begin after a U. S.- Taliban agreement is formalized. “If it’s not dealt with, it’s bound to impact the stability of Afghanistan over time,” Olson said in a follow- up interview.
The U. S. government has already spent more than $ 8 billion to combat the drug trade in Afghanistan since 2001, and yet the country remains the world’s top producer of heroin, the resin obtained from opium. So some argue that the Trump administration may be right to throw up its hands.
“It has been a problem that has defied us – for all the time we’ve been engaged in Afghanistan,” Stephen Hadley, a national security adviser in the George W. Bush administration, said at the Feb. 18 forum, hosted by the U. S. Institute of Peace. “At the end of the day, the Afghans are going to have to decide what is the right kind of counternarcotics strategy for themselves.”
Trump administration officials have not disclosed whether or how the opium trade will factor into the U. S.- Taliban agreement, which is tentatively set to be signed Saturday. But officials have described it as a relatively narrow deal in which the Taliban will agree not to let terrorists use Afghanistan as a training ground for attacks and the U. S. will set a timetable for withdrawal.
On Friday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that the U. S. had reached an “understanding with the Taliban on a significant and nationwide reduction in violence across Afghanistan.” If the seven- day truce holds, it could lead to the broader deal and a phased U. S. withdrawal.
As top State Department officials pursued that political settlement, the diplomatic agency quietly shelved efforts to come up with a new plan to curb opium production in the country, according to a letter Sopko sent to key members of Congress Jan. 10.
The State Department “has not revised, and has no plans to revise,” an 8year- old Obama- era counternarcotics strategy for Afghanistan, the inspector general said in his letter.
Top advisers to President Donald Trump defended the administration’s approach and said they have not abandoned efforts to curb opium production.
“The U. S. government has invested millions of dollars over the last several years ( on counternarcotics initiatives),” Lisa Curtis, Trump’s top national security adviser for South and Central Asia, told USA TODAY in a forum this month.
She said the Trump administration recognizes that the drug trade is a source of funding for the Taliban. “But, frankly speaking, this is a major, comprehensive problem that is intertwined with criminal networks, corruption, shortfalls in the legal system,” Curtis said. “It’s a very complicated issue.”
The administration seems to be focused on reaching a peace deal first and then relying on the Taliban to help reduce opium production. But experts say the U. S. won’t be able to achieve a viable peace deal without addressing Afghanistan’s opium production.
“The drug trade is a cash cow for terrorists,” Matthew Reid, a Marine Corps colonel who served in Afghanistan’s Helmand Province from 2017 to 2018, wrote in a recent Foreign Affairs article.
About 12,000 U. S. troops serve in Afghanistan, Defense Secretary Mark Esper said in January. Trump has said he wants to reduce the presence to 8,600.
Michael Rubin, a former Pentagon official and Middle East expert now with the conservative think tank American Enterprise Institute, said Trump administration officials are correct to say the counternarcotics problem cannot be addressed while the country is still in the grip of a bloody conflict.
“You have to try,” he said. But “you should not fool yourself into thinking it’s possible to really change the situation while the level of security is so low.”