Ever since the invasion in 2001, there's been a pretty stand response by the US to President Hamid Karzai and his various petulant pronouncements.
No matter what the man said, the US kept bringing him bags of cash.
And there were definitely times when US spending in Afghanistan seemed to be a little haphazard.
But all of that might be changing.
With no perceptible opposition from the Obama administration, Congress has quietly downscaled Washington's ambitions for the final year of the Afghan war, substantially curtailing development aid and military assistance plans ahead of the U.S. troop pullout.As congressional appropriators put the final touches on a huge spending bill in recent weeks, they slashed Afghanistan development aid by half and barred U.S. defense officials from embarking on major new infrastructure projects. After making a bid last year for $2.6 billion worth of "critical" capabilities such as mobile strike vehicles for Afghan security forces, the Pentagon agreed it could do with just 40 percent of what it had sought.
And then it gets personal.
"The bill prohibits the obligation or expenditure by the United States government, of funds appropriated in this or any other act, for the direct personal benefit of the President of Afghanistan," appropriators wrote, an unprecedented move that President Obama signed into law last week.
One day it's the tiara.
The next you're getting voted off by that Brit from CNN.
What This Means
While it's true that there are still substantial aid-related funds already approved for Afghanistan prior to this decision by the US Congress, it's a shift toward a markedly different line with Karzai's administration. But it won't have a real effect on anything happening in Afghanistan until those other monies run out. And by that point the attitude in DC might shift once again.
This isn't a message so much for Karzai (who's on his way out anyway) as it is for his successor and the larger world audience that's watching this particular drama unfold. This is brinksmanship at a whole new level for the Obama administration, and should make for an interesting year.
As to whether it's a good idea or not, well...
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