On Afghanistan, Biden Takes the Wrong Lesson From King Solomon
Biden's decision to seize and split Afghanistan's Central Bank reserves as the nation sinks into poverty has received widespread ire.
It was virtually everything. Almost all of it. Nearly every cent. Almost $10 billion of the reserves of Afghanistan’s central bank had been stored overseas. The vast majority of that money, $7 billion, was stored in the United States, where it would always be safe for the Islamic Republic to withdraw. The Islamic Republic of Afghanistan has now not existed for six months.
This legal limbo about what to do with the newly restored Islamic Emirate, the government of the Taliban back in power, has continued for months now. There are no Taliban ambassadors in any Afghan embassies around the world, not yet at least. They are still occupied by the former representatives of the last government, existing in their positions unpaid, in no communication with by any remnant of a central government, until what money they were left with runs out and the building closes up behind them.
Other governments in the past have existed in some form in exile after a massive military defeat. Taiwan is the most notable example, retaining its Republic of China name decades after being ousted from the mainland. Yemen’s government from before the Houthi overthrow rules from Riyadh. Various groups have claimed to take up the flag of South Vietnam after its fall, as have groups with the flag of the Belarusian Democratic Republic and the monarchy of Iran.
The US-backed Afghan government, owing to a wide variety of factors, has evaporated. President Ashraf Ghani no longer makes any claim to leadership. Amrullah Saleh still claims to be its acting president in exile, but the districts within Afghanistan under the resistance’s ostensible control are few and far between. A parliament in exile made up of Afghan women has been formed in Athens, but whether it communicates with Saleh isn’t apparent and its long-term permanence isn’t either, some of its members already readying to leave Greece and start new lives elsewhere. Afghan embassies have also worked disconnectedly, with the mission in Washington DC not acknowledging Saleh’s claim to the presidency, while the mission in Tajikistan put up his portrait in their offices.
What is clear is that no one the US wants to come is coming for that $7 billion. Only the Afghan government could claim it, and the Taliban, while in power and having taken over every institution, is not recognized as such. It is still in the midst of deal-making and trip-taking to convince governments that they are there to stay, something that may take a long time to achieve in even small amounts. Only three countries recognized the Taliban during their initial rule in the 1990s. Putting up Taliban ambassadors in places like Beijing or Abu Dhabi may take many more months, even years to achieve. Recognition from the United States, asking of it assurances for women’s rights that it will never grant under an Islamist system, may never come at all.
And so the money has sat, frozen. Afghanistan’s banking sector now heavily restricted and the Taliban government now unable to access what was ostensibly the country’s own money, the economic shockwaves were immediate. A run on the banks ensued, the sector nearing collapse.
August passed. A UN report comes out saying 97% of Afghans could be in poverty by next year. September came and went. Half of Afghans now faced food shortages. October. Fears of famine began to emerge. November. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken unfreezes $280 million in aid, but it ultimately isn’t enough. December. The UN launches its biggest appeal for aid for a single nation in its history, asking for billions. January comes to a close. In February, President Biden finally makes his decision.
Rather then give Afghanistan’s central bank access to its own money to keep the national government functioning, the United States has instead seized it, $7 billion in total, and will split it in two. $3.5 billion will go to Afghan humanitarian aid, the other $3.5 billion to families of 9/11 victims who had won a lawsuit against the Taliban in court in 2012.
On the surface, if you are perhaps someone passing by a headline, it seemed like a great idea. Denying the Taliban money to fund its government that had overthrown a democratic administration, and instead giving the money directly to the people of Afghanistan and the victims of Osama bin Laden. A win-win for everyone involved. But for those who took the time to break below the surface, the truth of what this decision would mean was clear, even through the water.
The $3.5 billion set aside for Afghan humanitarian aid would not go direct non-stop to aid organizations operating in the country. The $3.5 billion is instead going into a trust fund, from which point aid money will be rolled out how the United States sees fit. On top of the placement of third parties into the monetary flow process, the setting up of this trust fund will take months by the White House’s own estimates, when Afghanistan is still on track to reach universal poverty by the middle of this year. Still, even if all $3.5 billion was directly sent to aid organizations instantaneously, it would not be enough to reach goals aid organizations themselves have said is necessary. The UN has said that $4.4 billion alone is needed to fund basic services in the country this year, and if the funding is inadequate, it may be $10 billion next year.
The response of Afghans has so far not been supportive. Afghans For A Better Tomorrow, a US-based progressive organization of Afghan diaspora, condemned the move in a statement posted to Twitter.
“This decision is short[-]sighted, cruel, and will serve to worsen a catastrophe in progress, affecting millions of Afghans, many of whom are on the verge of starvation.”
Inside the country, Hamid Karzai, who had been president of Afghanistan for 13 years, condemned the action as “unjust and unfair and an atrocity” and remarked that the Afghan people were “as much victims as those [9/11] families who lost their lives.” Remnants of the fallen Afghan government, such as Ashraf Ghani, Amrullah Saleh, and others, have not acknowledged the decision as of the time of this writing.
The other $3.5 billion, this time set aside for families of victims of 9/11, brings back to the spotlight lawsuits whose previous ability to be enforced was impossible. One lawsuit filed by 150 families in New York in 2012 sought damages from not just al-Qaida and the Taliban, but also Iran, Hezbollah, and Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
Iran’s connections to 9/11 being almost non-existent was of no obstacle. Khamenei, nor anyone anyone else, ever showed up in court to contest the suit, so the judge issued a default judgment: $6,048,513,805, plus interest, to be paid out.
Lawsuits such as these have had little success being enforced against Iran. A separate attempt to enforce a judgment in 2018 about a 1997 suicide bombing in Israel resulted in the Supreme Court stepping in to prevent ancient Iranian artifacts from being seized to pay the judgement. The same was true for the Taliban, at least for a time, until last year when they returned to power and appointed a new governor of the Afghan central bank. The $7 billion in reserves in the US could cover feasibly all that the judge ordered paid, and now Biden could give them at least some of what they wanted.
Not all families of victims of 9/11 were in unicen with Biden’s decision however. The September Eleventh Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, another group, mirrored the opinion of one of their members Barry Amundson, whose brother died in the Pentagon.
“I can’t think of a worse betrayal of the people of Afghanistan than to freeze their assets and give it to 9/11 families. While 9/11 families are seeking justice for their loss through these suits, I fear that the end result of seizing this money will be to cause further harm to innocent Afghans who have already suffered greatly.”
The decision has found limited support outside the US government and various conservative publications. The move has been questioned by Human Rights Watch and some at the Atlantic Council have warned that it will “destroy whatever remained of the formal Afghan economy.” Some journalists have derided the move variously as “demonic”, “a nesting doll of harm”, and have called it outright theft. The move has also elicited, through its splitting in half between two groups, comparisons to Biden taking the wrong wisdom from the Judgment of Solomon.
The story of the Judgment of Solomon can be found in the Book of Kings of the Hebrew Bible. One night, God comes to King Solomon in a dream, and tells him to asks what he wants of the Lord. Solomon asks God to give him a “discerning heart to govern your people and to distinguish between right and wrong.” His prayer is granted.
Thereafter, two women came before him, both claiming to be the mother of a newborn son. Solomon offered his judgment to the both of them: “Cut the living child in two and give half to one and half to the other.” The fake mother welcomes the ruling, thus letting Solomon know who that she is being deceitful, for splitting the newborn in two would kill it. It’s a tale twinged with folkloric feel, a decision so obvious that its morals and metaphor are crystal clear to the reader.
Nevertheless, it seems as if Biden has taken the wrong lesson from it. Instead, he stops at 1 Kings 3:25. Doesn’t read Solomon’s recognition. Admires the wisdom that Solomon has to come to such an ingenious compromise, where both sides are happy and where everyone gets what they want.
On February 12, Blinken celebrated the announcement of the executive order to split the reserves, hailing it as a “benefit” for the Afghan people.
Blinken did not specify which people in Afghanistan supported Biden’s decision.
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