STILL WRONG IN AFGHANISTAN

"I'm a spray man myself," President Bush told government leaders and
American counter-narcotics officials during his 2006 trip to
Afghanistan. He said it again when President Hamid Karzai visited
Camp David in August. Bush meant, of course, that he favors aerial
eradication of poppy fields in Afghanistan, which supplies over 90
percent of the world's heroin. His remarks -- which, despite their
flippant nature, were definitely not meant as a joke -- are part of
the story behind the spectacularly unsuccessful U.S.
counter-narcotics program in Afghanistan. Karzai and much of the
international community in Kabul have warned Bush that aerial
spraying would create a backlash against the government and the
Americans, and serve as a recruitment device for the Taliban while
doing nothing to reduce the drug trade. This is no side issue: If the
program continues to fail, success in Afghanistan will be impossible.

Fortunately, Bush has not been able to convince other nations or
Karzai that aerial spraying should be conducted, although he is
vigorously supported by the American ambassador, William Wood, who
was an enthusiastic proponent of aerial spraying in his previous
assignment, in Colombia. Wood, often called "Chemical Bill" in Kabul,
has even threatened senior Afghan officials with cuts in
reconstruction funds if his policies are not carried out, according
to two sources.

But even without aerial eradication, the program, which costs around
$1 billion a year, may be the single most ineffective program in the
history of American foreign policy. It's not just a waste of money.
It actually strengthens the Taliban and al-Qaeda, as well as criminal
elements within Afghanistan.

According to the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, the area under opium
cultivation increased to 193,000 hectares in 2007 from 165,000 in
2006. The harvest also grew, to 8,200 tons from 6,100. Could any
program be more unsuccessful?

The program destroys crops in insecure areas, especially in the
south, where the Taliban is strongest. This policy pushes farmers
with no other source of livelihood into the arms of the Taliban
without reducing the total amount of opium being produced. Meanwhile,
there is far too little effort made against the drug lords and
high-ranking government officials who are at the heart of the huge
drug trade in Afghanistan -- probably the largest single-country drug
production since 19th-century China -- whose dollar value equals
about 50 percent of the country's official gross domestic product.
There is a direct correlation between opium production and security.
In relatively secure areas, production has dropped, but along the
Pakistan border in the insecure south, production is increasing and
amounts to about 80 percent of the overall crop.

Everyone talks about "alternative livelihoods" and alternative crops
as the solution to the drug problem. This is true in theory -- but
this theory has been tried elsewhere with almost no success. Poppies
are an easy crop to grow and are far more valuable than any other
product that can be grown in the rocky, remote soil of most of
Afghanistan. Without roads, it is hard to get heavier (and less
valuable) crops to market -- and what market is there, anyway? It
will take years to create the networks of roads, markets and
lucrative crops that would induce farmers to switch, especially when
government officials, including some with close ties to the
presidency, are protecting the drug trade and profiting from it. (Any
Kabul resident can point out where drug lords live -- they have the
largest and fanciest houses in town.)

Barnett Rubin, a leading expert on Afghanistan and a fellow at the
Asia Society in New York and New York University's Center on
International Cooperation, writes in a forthcoming study that "the
location of narcotics cultivation is the result -- not the cause --
of insecurity." He adds, "Escalating forced eradication" -- as the
U.S. Embassy wants to do -- "will only make the effort fail more
quickly because it actually builds the insurgency it is trying to eliminate."

To be sure, breaking the narco-state in Afghanistan is essential, or
all else will fail. But it will take years, and American policies
today are working against their own objective. Couple that with the
other most critical fact about the war in Afghanistan -- it cannot be
won as long as the border areas in Pakistan are havens for the
Taliban and al-Qaeda -- and you have the ingredients for a war that
will last far longer than the war in Iraq, even if NATO sends more
troops and the appalling National Police training program is finally
fixed. Solving this problem requires bold, creative thinking.
Consideration should be given to a temporary suspension of
eradication in insecure areas, accompanied by an intensified effort
to improve security, build small market-access roads and offer
farmers free agricultural support.

When I offered these thoughts on this page almost two years ago ["
Afghanistan: The Long Road Ahead," op-ed, April 2, 2006], I was told
by several high-ranking U.S. government officials that I was too
pessimistic. I hope they do not still think so. Even more, I hope
they will reexamine the disastrous drug policies that are spending
American tax dollars to strengthen America's enemies.