The Billion-Dollar Breakup

Last weekend, the Bush administration announced it would soon propose a $1 billion aid package for Afghanistan, more than triple the amount of assistance the war-shattered country received this year. The money will fund badly needed reconstruction projects: roads, schools, women's employment programs, the hastened build-up of the Afghan National Army.

The move, seemingly out of nowhere, met with a gracious welcome from President Hamid Karzai's government.

"Reconstruction creates jobs," Karzai Chief of Staff Said Tayab Jawad said. "It creates a sense of trust and gives people hope for a more peaceful future."

The proposal signifies an abrupt turnaround for the White House, which earlier this year submitted a budget that included exactly zero dollars in humanitarian and reconstruction aid for the country, preferring to funnel all its spending in Afghanistan -- about $1 billion a month -- into the U.S. military's war against terrorism. The only reason Afghanistan got any reconstruction money at all this year was that Congress hurriedly tacked on a $300 million aid package just before the budget passed. (To get a sense of the kind of commitment this represents, consider that the 2003 U.S. foreign aid budget, not including military expenses for Afghanistan and Iraq, was $16 billion.)

The White House decision, then, to administer a $1-billion cash infusion to a country so egregiously neglected in the last round of budget proposals would seem to signal a shift in priorities. But a change in tactics should not be confused with a change of heart. The administration is more eager than ever to extricate itself from Afghanistan. This plan is designed to speed that process; it is a fancy candlelit dinner and a new outfit on the eve of the breakup -- after months of heavy hints that the relationship just isn't working out.

The clues lie in the nature of the projects to be funded and the origin of the plan itself. Unnamed officials cited in The Washington Post said the package was designed to fund highly visible projects that can be finished in a year, boosting the image of the U.S.-backed Karzai government in time for national elections in October 2004.

On a visit to Washington last month, Afghan Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah stressed the importance of noticeable improvements to daily Afghan life to the transitional government's chances of winning the elections, originally scheduled for June 2004.

"If in June 2004 the capital is in dark because of [a lack of] electricity, will anybody believe this government that things will be different in two and a half years from then?" he asked. "No. I think this government will lose credibility; its friends will lose credibility. To the eyes of the Afghan people, it will be $4.5 billion spent and still no electricity in Kabul, in the capital." Handsome new schools and smooth black ribbons of highway where once were pothole-riddled jeep-busters are just the sorts of showcase projects to reassure Afghans that Karzai is the right horse to bet on. Other destinations for the new aid are programs to get women back into the workforce -- a crowd-pleaser here at home, where the touted improvements to Afghan women's lives are a treasured, if largely fictitious, source of satisfaction -- and the strengthening of a national police force and army, for which a small contingent of U.S. lawmakers and foreign policy insiders have been pressing with mounting urgency.

The question, of course, is how long the United States will remain involved with Afghanistan after the goal of installing Karzai in office has been met. That the $1 billion aid plan originated inside the Pentagon is a bad sign for the long-term prospects of a mutually caring and respectful relationship between Washington and Kabul. Not only does it highlight the trend of Defense Department encroachment on State Department turf, but it suggests that the ultimate goal of this proposal is to free up troop and treasure commitments for other ventures. Iraq, North Korea and Iran call.