Nearly a year after President Trump’s strategy reset, the U.S.-backed war effort in Afghanistan is “treading water” and needs to show fresh progress to justify the American mission, a key House Republican lawmaker said Wednesday.
The comments from House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce, California Republican, came a day after Lt. Gen. Austin Scott Miller faced similar questions at a Senate confirmation hearing on whether there was a target date to end the 17-year conflict, already the longest in American history.
“We’ve been treading water,” Mr. Royce told Alice Wells, assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asia, as a hearing on the Trump administration’s Afghan policy.
“While leaving [Afghanistan] today would do more harm than good, our substantial military and development commitment to Afghanistan cannot be open-ended. We need to see more progress,” Mr. Royce added.
The frustrating nature of the fight against the Taliban and other jihadist groups has been on display this month. After a brief but unprecedented truce between the Taliban and the U.S.-backed government of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, Taliban fighters killed at least 30 Afghan soldiers in an attack on two checkpoints in western Badghis province, a provincial official told the Associated Press.
Ms. Wells told lawmakers that the administration believes that strengthening the Afghan government and military remains the best way to defeat the Taliban. Like Gen. Miller, she said there were positive signs on the ground alongside the setbacks.
“Taliban momentum has slowed, as a result of both our own modest troop increase, as well as the renewed commitment of our [NATO partners and allies], … Afghan security forces are steadily improving,” said Ms. Wells.
She said the brief truce — called to mark the Muslim celebration of Eid-al-Fitr — was a hopeful sign that direct talks between the Taliban and the Ghani government could eventually bear fruit.
“If Afghan troops and Taliban foot-soldiers can pray together, then the Afghan people have every reason to believe that their leaders can come together and negotiate an end to this war,” she said.
But like Gen. Miller, the State Department official faulted Pakistan for not doing enough on its side of the border to crack down on jihadist groups and block them from finding sanctuary. President Trump also sharply criticized Islamabad last August in unveiling his new strategy that included an increase in U.S. forces in Afghanistan.
Pakistan has not taken “sustained or decisive” steps to root out terror safe havens,” Ms. Wells told the panel.
“Pakistan is on notice that we expect its unequivocal cooperation ending sanctuaries that the Taliban have enjoyed since the remnants of their toppled regime fled into Pakistan in 2001,” she said in her prepared statement.
Much of Wednesday’s hearing focused on the Taliban’s continuing ability to finance the war and the growing role of illegal opium sales, which funds an estimated 60 percent of the insurgency’s operations. Recent territorial gains by the Taliban have exacerbated the problem.
Some 85 percent of Afghanistan’s opiates “grow in areas that are controlled and contested by the Taliban,” Ms. Wells said.
Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, California Republican, said U.S. anti-drug efforts to date amount to “PR” and argued that the U.S. could easily cut off the Taliban’s drug empire.
“If we wanted to eliminate poppy production, we could do it in a week,” the lawmaker said. “We have the technological capabilities and we have not done that. We have thus permitted the Taliban to have a major source of billions of dollars … which permits them to have the bullets and the guns that are necessary to have in terrorist organization.”
Lawmakers from both parties expressed frustration at the seemingly endless struggle to set up a functioning government in Kabul that can hand its own security needs, with no sign the conflict is ending.
“The fact is we have no good options in Afghanistan,” Rep. Gerry Connolly, Virginia Democrat, said. “To hand over the country to the Taliban is unacceptable. To redouble our support for a corrupt, incompetent central government that lacks legitimacy with its own people is untenable.”
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