“The Best Policy for the US might be to do no harm”
AFBT executive director Arash Azizzada’s letter to the editor was published on February 28th in response to an op-ed titled “The U.S. Can No Longer Ignore the Threat Arising in Afghanistan.” We are reproducing the entirety of the letter below.
“Javid Ahmad is right about one thing: Afghanistan should not be ignored anymore. Many of his ideas, however, struck many of the old, tired platitudes of the past. Viewing Afghanistan through the prism of a threat ignores four decades of failed American-led policies there. Listen to Afghans who live there and center their needs, rather than those in Washington who don’t have our best interests at heart.
Diplomacy with unsavory actors should never be ruled out, but Mr. Ahmad ignores President Trump’s deal-making in the region in the past, which might have been positive for him politically but was in fact terrible for the Afghan and American people alike.
All negotiations require partners you can trust, but both the Taliban and President Trump have shown that for now, the best policy for the United States might be to do no harm.
Arash Azizzada
Brooklyn
The writer is the executive director of Afghans for a Better Tomorrow.”