As Elon Musk pursues his "draining the swamp" in Washington, D.C., his plan to reduce the size of the US federal government may have a number of unintended consequences.
To be sure, few people might disagree with ending payments to millions of people who continue drawing their Social Security benefits years after having died and been buried.
Even fewer might approve of channeling millions of dollars in aid to NGOs in such emerging economic giants like India and Indonesia, not to mention sinkholes such as Afghanistan or active anti-American states like South Africa.
In some cases, a notable one being UNRWA, which has kept Palestinian militant groups alive for decades, US aid may be one reason why people face endless wars.
Let me explain. In South Sudan, not to mention Gaza, the gunmen in control of what poses as a government need not worry about such basic needs as food, health care, basic schooling and even art and entertainment, because NGOs or UN agencies funded by the US and other Western democracies foot the bill. That leaves the gunmen in control, free to spend whatever resources they can mobilize on buying arms, recruiting fighters and continuing their war.
In Houthi-controlled Yemen, which now says it is at war against the US, more than 60 percent of the food needed to keep the population under control alive and able to fire missiles at US ships comes from foreign aid largely funded by Washington.
In other words, foreign aid is one key cause of more than a dozen endless wars across the globe.
Musk is also right to question the wisdom of financing almost 40 percent of such bodies as the Organization of American States, which has just chosen a noted anti-American as its new secretary-general.
As for the United Nations itself, under Secretary General António Guterres, it has become a forum for virtue-signaling anti-American propaganda.
At 37% of gross domestic product, overall US spending on government, both federal and state, is still lower than the average for OECD nations: France 57%, Japan 41%, United Kingdom 44%, Sweden 47%, Italy 54%.
Yet, compared to the 1980s, it is 10 percent higher, indicating a trend towards bigger and more expensive government that President Donald J Trump is hoping to curtail.
The Trump-Musk cost-cutting campaign may provide an opportunity for a thorough review of the usefulness of numerous international organizations that may have gone past their sell-by date or even become threats to peace and stability.
One casualty of the 88% cut in the USAID budget may be part of the Iranian opposition to the Islamic regime in Tehran. It started as a cottage industry in 1979, when the Carter administration saw its hopes for backing an Islamist regime in Iran as part of a "green belt" against the USSR evaporate, when the seizure of the US Embassy in Tehran and the holding of its diplomats as hostages led to a direct confrontation with Washington's erstwhile allies in Iran.
Within less than a year, the US had persuaded some of its allies who had fought the Shah's government for decades to break their ties to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and re-enter the stage as opponents of the new Islamist regime.
However, the Khomeinist regime was successful in marginalizing or even crushing such groups as the National Front, the Iran Liberty Movement, the People's Holy Warriors (Mojahedin-e-Khalq), the Iran Radical Party and more than a dozen personality-based outfits.
With opposition work made too risky inside Iran, most groups took the road to exile, first to Western Europe and then to the United States.
By the end of 2024, Iranians in exile numbered almost eight million, or 10% of Iran's total population.
Under President Ronald Reagan, the US tried to organize Iranian opposition groups by directly funding some or providing them with a media outlet through Voice of America and Radio Liberty.
With putting pressure on Tehran's mullahs but avoiding a direct military clash with them being a top priority, the US set ideological considerations aside by supporting even Marxist groups, including two Kurdish outfits based in Iraq.
Under President Barack Obama, the US emerged as the principal supporter of the "reformist" faction in Tehran, to the point that it won the nickname "the Democrat Party's Iran branch." Voice of America and Radio Liberty in Persian were filled with activists who remained loyal to the anti-Shah revolution, but dreamt of a republic free of the mullahs and controlled by leftist groups.
Using the cost-benefit yardstick, Musk might see no reason to continue pouring millions of US taxpayers' dollars into the pockets of individuals and groups that lack a real constituency in Iran or in the exiled Iranian community.
By some accounts, the exiles run over 400 media outlets in some 30 countries, mostly the US and Western Europe.
Musk could keep Voice of America and Radio Liberty, though not as a propaganda tool for this or that faction in Tehran. They could offer Iranians inside Iran a window to the US, along with professional nonpartisan journalism with what is left of high American standards.
Amir Taheri was the executive editor-in-chief of the daily Kayhan in Iran from 1972 to 1979. He has worked at or written for innumerable publications, published eleven books, and has been a columnist for Asharq Al-Awsat since 1987.
Gatestone Institute would like to thank the author for his kind permission to reprint this article in slightly different form from Asharq Al-Awsat. He graciously serves as Chairman of Gatestone Europe.
