Why Branding the Haqqanis Terrorists Was a Mistake
The Downsides of Making Policy During a Campaign
Article Summary and Author Biography
Adding the Haqqani network to the State Department's terrorist list is big on symbolism but slim on substance -- a domestic political gambit that may end up complicating life when the next administration tries to bring the Afghan war to a close.
AUDREY KURTH CRONIN is Professor of Public Policy at George Mason University.
Snapshot
At first glance, that the Pakistan-based Haqqani network is missing from a U.S. list of terrorist organizations is puzzling. But the criminal syndicate differs in form, function, and focus from most groups that make the terrorist list. Moreover, listing the organization might not achieve serve U.S. interests.
Last week, the Obama administration designated the Haqqani network as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO). The move seems reasonable. For one, the Haqqanis are responsible for some of the most heinous terrorist attacks on Americans in Afghanistan. In July, the U.S. Congress gave Secretary of State Hillary Clinton a September 9 deadline to either add the group to the FTO list or explain her rationale for not doing so -- a potential election-year land mine.
The listing, however, is more about appearances than outcomes. As I wrote last year ("Why the Haqqani Network Is Not on the Foreign Terrorist Organizations List"), most of the network's senior members are already individually sanctioned under the Specially Designated Global Terrorist designation, which means that Treasury has long had the power to go after the assets of most of them. The FTO label simply gives Treasury the additional option of sanctioning the organization as a whole, including those who provide material support or resources to its members.
In this case, that includes some surprising (and not-so-surprising) bedfellows. Over the last few years, the Haqqanis have morphed into a blatantly criminal organization, profiting from the war through smuggling, extortion, kidnapping, and legal and illegal businesses on both sides of the Durand line. The group still raises money from wealthy donors in the Persian Gulf, but its tentacles now also reach into Pakistan's armed forces and its Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, in addition to Afghan President Hamid Karzai's administration. The United States is also indirectly involved: in 2011, The New York Times reported that U.S. Agency for International Development contractors paid almost a million dollars in protection money to build the Gardez-Khost road in southeastern Afghanistan, which is still unfinished. Some of that funding went to the Haqqanis...
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