Mike Pompeo’s new book, Never Give An Inch, released on Tuesday, reveals certain facts about Afghanistan’s former Afghan President, Mohammad Ashraf Ghani and the previous administration in Afghanistan during his time as secretary of state and the reasons for the collapse of the entire political system in the country.
Pompeo, who served under President Donald Trump as the 70th United States secretary of state, had much to say about Afghanistan’s former president, Ashraf Ghani and Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah. He mentioned that “both led cartels that stole millions of dollars in aid money from the United States.”
He added that one of the main reasons for collapsing the entire political system was the high level of corruption and the “crooked system of patronage in the country.”
He stated that, in his opinion, “low-level corruption secured a measure of stability” and prevented the country from collapsing.
On the other hand, Zalmay Khalilzan, whom President Donald Trump appointed as the US special envoy for Afghanistan reconciliation, stated in a series of tweets that “president Ghani felt he could ignore clear messages from Pompeo, myself and other US officials while had great connections with members of congress, retired generals, and lobbyists.”
He further said that this was a tragic mistake by former president Ghani: “These connections led him (Ghani) to believe the US would maintain a robust military presence in Afghanistan, despite what both administrations told him regarding American withdrawal.”
Ghani, however, believed that any agreement between the US and the Taliban would “throw him out of power, which was probably true, so he spearheaded a tremendous campaign to disrupt our negotiations,” according to Pompeo.
He noted that the two met in Kabul on one occasion when Ghani refused “to negotiate in good faith.
However, the 2019 peace deal has been severely criticized by experts who argue that it did not lead to sustainable peace and stability in Afghanistan but rather than it was a face-saving device for the Trump administration to bring back US troops from Afghanistan.
