The recent assassination of political strongman Ahmed Wali Karzai put in plain sight for Americans something in Afghanistan that has been off the radar for many: drug-related corruption. Half-brother to the president and head of the elected provincial council in Kandahar, the late Karzai was known in southern Afghanistan for his wealth and power—both of which, some allege, he derived in part from his influence in the illicit drug trade.
After his death, media reports labeled him as a suspected player in his region's narcotics business. And according to Vanda Felbab-Brown, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who specializes in illicit economies, in a country like Afghanistan where narcotics made from opium poppy, like heroin, contribute to an estimated third or more of its economy, it would have been hard to impossible for Karzai to achieve the status he did without some drug involvement. "It's very much the economic engine of the country," she says. "Under such circumstances, anyone who wants to have any level of power or any level of economic security will somehow participate in the drug trade, at least in terms of cultivation of poppy."
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Although it was hardly mentioned during the recent debate over U.S. withdrawal, the outcome of the war and the future of Afghanistan depend significantly on the opium business, which has been a prominent under-the-table source of funds for many Afghans, including government officials. Therefore, U.S. anti-drug efforts in the country involve a sort of give and take, choosing the lesser of two evils. Western forces try to target Afghanistan's drug producers when they know profits go to the Taliban or to terrorist groups like al Qaeda. But when the illicit cash goes to allies of the Afghan government, they're more likely to look the other way, says Felbab-Brown.
And for all the problems with that line of action, it might just be the best strategy available. According to Mark Kleiman, public policy professor at University of California-Los Angeles and author of Drugs and Drug Policy: What Everyone Needs to Know, even if U.S. law enforcement and the military could accurately target Afghanistan's top officials for involvement with narcotics—in turn, weakening an already unstable government—drugs would still be produced. Take the case of Karzai, for example. "If we'd arrested Wali Karzai, convicted him, imprisoned him, would a single kilo of heroin not have left Afghanistan that's now going to leave? Of course not," he says. "It's worth making sacrifices if you're getting some gain, but not just for ritual."
Though Myanmar has increased its output in recent years, Afghanistan remains the world's top cultivator of opium poppy, producing 63 percent of global supply in 2010, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime's 2011 World Drug Report. It's difficult to quantify how much money that actually means for the people of Afghanistan, but based on the street prices in consumer nations, primarily in Europe and Asia, Afghan opiates generated approximately $65 billion on global markets in 2010, according to Brian Nichols, principal deputy secretary of secretary of state for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs. To put that in perspective, Afghanistan's legal gross domestic product was roughly $15.6 billion in the same year.
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These economic realities make it difficult for Americans to go after the drug problem, and some would argue, are enough reason to just leave it alone for now. According to Kleiman, counternarcotics efforts in Afghanistan, like in parts of Latin America, often end up empowering enemies, which in this case are the Taliban and terrorist groups the country has been at war with for nearly a decade. By trying to limit the supply of drugs, he argues, "We are keeping prices high, [which is] good for the bad guys, and we are forcing drug traffickers into areas that are not maintained by the government, [which is] also good for the bad guys. It could not be a more counterproductive approach."
Still, Americans continue to the effort. Supporters of drug control, like California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley, co-chairs of the Senate Caucus of International Narcotics Control, argue that it helps national security goals by cutting off a central source of funding for terrorists and insurgents. In a hearing on the issue held Wednesday by the caucus, they pushed for greater law enforcement and punishment—including extradition to the United States—for Afghanistan's major narcotics players.
In recent years, the Obama administration has backed away from large-scale poppy eradication efforts, which were more expensive and alienated rural farmers, threatening to push them away from the legitimate government and under the wing of the insurgents. Instead, according to testimony from the Drug Enforcement Agency, Pentagon, and the State Department, U.S. agencies partner with local law enforcement to crack down on individual drug labs, most of which are run by the Taliban. In 2010, Nichols reported in his testimony, the Counternarcotics Police of Afghanistan and their American partners seized over 11 metric tons of heroin on such operations.
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As far as drug-related corruption in government, that's been more difficult to pinpoint, and partly as a result, less of a priority. According to Nichols, fighting bribery and corrupt practices has been most difficult among the country's top officials. "There has been important progress against mid-level officials, but there is a tremendous amount of work that needs to be done in terms of high-level corruption," he told senators Wednesday.
Indeed, although rumors circulate about Afghan government officials' involvement with drug trafficking, there's hardly ever a smoking gun. Nevertheless, Thomas Harrigan, assistant administrator and chief of operations at the DEA, says that if agents had the evidence against top officials, there would be nothing stopping them from pursuing it. "We're concerned with levels of corruption in the Afghan government, but the bottom line is that we don't know what we don't know," he testified Wednesday.
To get a legal economy—one that could compete with the black market—up and running is another problem that U.S. officials are trying to deal with before security is transferred to the Afghans. There have been efforts by the U.S. State Department to promote agricultural alternatives and to educate rural populations about the dangers of narcotics cultivation. But for farmers who often struggle just to survive, it's difficult to walk away from the profits. According to the most recent Afghanistan Opium Survey released in January by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, leaders of more than three quarters of villages said their main motivation for growing poppy was the high price of opiates. Poverty was the second most dominant reason.
Harrigan says the DEA is committed to remaining in Afghanistan to deal with the drug problem even after American troops leave, and they're making an effort to train and equip Afghan law enforcement to take care of the problem in the future. Nevertheless, according to Felbab-Brown, if and when troops leave, the fight against drugs likely won't be a priority for the Afghan government or security forces, especially given the economic benefits of the industry. "When we significantly scale down ground operations in Afghanistan, the pressure will be very hard to resurrect eradication," she says. "That said, we will either have to do it against the will of the Afghan government, or somehow buy them or force it down their throat."
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