A recent Washington Post article featured an uber driver who had been the Minister of Finance in Afghanistan before it fell to the Taliban. He feels bad about the loss of his government, and about himself. However, a better understanding of Afghanistan’s context may be helpful.
Khalid Payenda was in charge of the $6B Afghan budget before the Taliban takeover. Retrospection generates sorrow: “We didn’t have the collective will to reform.” On the day Afghanistan fell, he tweeted to a colleague: “[W]e had 20 years and the whole world’s support to build a system that would work for the people. We miserably failed.” He also tweeted: “All we built was a house of cards that came down crashing this fast. A house of cards built on the foundation of corruption.” He complains about a US strategy that empowered warlords who were good at killing the Taliban, no matter how ruthless they were nor how much they stole. He also blames the US for handing over the country to the Taliban.
It might help Mr. Payenda to understand Afghanistan’s situation in the context of societal development. Creating the collective will to become a nation-state takes generations—even 20 years is not enough. Corruption reflects a society in transition—it takes decades to eliminate, and some countries never do it. Warlords are the natural combat force for a society such as Afghanistan, even though they may not adhere to western ideals of fairness. That America would negotiate directly with the Taliban, bypassing the government we were trying to create, was unusual and deserves scorn; however, one needs to remember that long-term commitments are not within the American psyche—the US was never going to stay long enough for Afghan institutions to fully develop.
When the loya jurga (governing council) decided Afghanistan would become a republic in 2001, it took on too much, though no one knew it at the time. Re-establishing the monarchy would have been the right move. While this perspective may provide little comfort for Mr. Payenda, it should at least disincline him from blaming himself. There were much bigger issues at work.
Source: Greg Jaffe, “In a DC Uber, Recollections of Afghanistan’s Quick Fall,” Washington Post, 3/20/2022, A1; see also https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/03/18/afghanistans-last-finance-minister-now-dc-uber-driver-ponders-what-went-wrong/
Photo: Astrid Riecken, Washington Post
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