Maybe he’s got published the memoir too early. Even if Zalmay Khalilzad, had already tell 2016 a lot about his life, which began in Afghanistan and him as a top diplomat to Washington’s Central circle of power. “The Messenger Of. From Kabul to the White house, my journey through a turbulent world”, he biography his car. However, the Chapter with the greatest potential is lacking.

Only a few months ago, U.S. President Donald Trump Khalilzad has been appointed to the position of special envoy for Afghanistan. With an order: a native Afghan is supposed to end the longest war in American history. As quickly as possible.

In Khalilzad is currently negotiating with the Taliban in Doha. The peace dialogue has included travel. A lot of people in Afghanistan keep track of the banned, but with concern. Because at the negotiating table, the Americans and the Taliban, but the Afghan government. The Taliban refuse to talk with President Ashraf Ghani. The Islamists are so powerful that they could speak eye-to-eye with Khalilzad. The stresses, to take into account Afghanistan’s interests. But President Ghani, in Kabul, has little faith in the US negotiator Khalilzad. It was obvious that American interests in the negotiation strategy dominated.

Only special forces?

In the bilateral talks are primarily concerned with two questions: when to pull the US troops? And like the Taliban can guarantee in return that Afghan soil is not a terrorist risk, in attacks like those on 11. September 2001 ends? Public Khalilzad says that nothing is decided until there is a comprehensive solution – one that is for the Afghans to be satisfactory.

But have it on good sources were in Kabul, it’s called Khalilzad to get the Deal with the Taliban as quickly as possible, and the Islamists were now no longer so eager that the US pull completely out of Afghanistan. It is conceivable, therefore, that the Taliban must announce at the end of the negotiation process as an effective withdrawal of most U.S. troops, but some of the American special forces, terrorists as a disincentive to use the country as a base.

U.S. negotiator Zalmay Khalilzad. Photo: Keith Bedford (Reuters)

So that America would have reached the last strategic objective. For this concession, are to receive according to current interpretation of the negotiations is the Taliban a force participation in Afghanistan, without having to in the elections the will of the people. This development solidifies America would put security interests ahead of democratic achievements in Afghanistan. Is not decided yet, but it is also not excluded. As always, a negotiated solution fails – it comes to the conclusion of peace, would be the 67-year-old Khalilzad, an entry in the history books for sure.

Khalilzad was born in the Northern Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif, visited in the capital, Kabul, an elite school and was gifted in Basketball, he made the leap into the Afghan national team. Already as a student he spent a year in the United States, he later studied at the American University in Beirut, and finally in Chicago, where he in 1979 with a PhD.

Bush’s Manifesto

In the same year, Soviet troops in Afghanistan. Since then, the country has been shaken by a war after the other. Khalilzad remained in the United States, became an American citizen and suggested a political career. He spoke in favour of the Mujahedin against the Soviet army with air-defense missiles to equip – one of the Central reasons for the defeat of the Russians in Afghanistan.

While his country is abdriftete the beginning of the nineties in a civil war and then the Taliban ruled, made Khalilzad in neo-con circles around Paul Wolfowitz’s career. Here the outside has been worked out political Manifesto of the later President George W. Bush: America was understood at the time as a global power and was dedicated to the largely unsuccessful export Democracy – such as the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq demonstrate.

Khalilzad was under Bush, the American Ambassador in Kabul, Baghdad and at the United Nations. As Barack Obama moved into the White house, it was silent to him. But now the great hour of the diplomat strikes again. He is a quiet and tough negotiator, is networked in Afghanistan. The Ex-President Hamid Karzai, he knows from his time in common time in the United States. With the current President Ghani he has once studied in Beirut, but at the Moment they are pursuing different interests.

In the dialogue with Mullah

Khalilzad sits these days with Mullah Baradar in a table, a man whose word in the case of the Taliban, has great weight, even if the Islamists are not a unified Block. He was once co-founder of the militia, and for many years the Deputy to the undisputed leader, Mullah Omar, who died in 2013.

Taliban connoisseurs describe Baradar as a moderate. In 2010, Pakistan had arrested of the secret service him in the port city of Karachi. It was said that Islamabad wanted to torpedo the peace process, because Baradar was ready at the time as a conversation. But the USA gave the Taliban at that time as terrorists, which does not negotiate must be. Nine years later, has changed the setting, because of the conflict the military can not be solved anymore.

President Ashraf Ghani, who followed the talks in Doha only as a spectator, wants to hold in March a big meeting to get a broad social mandate for dealing with the Taliban. He wants to take back the reins. Ghani, in Kabul, fighting for his political future.

Khalilzad is struggling, however, to America’s face-the conclusion of a war that lasts for more than 17 years. There are many indications that the men are not able to bring the joint past your goals at the Moment.

(editing Tamedia)

Created: 28.02.2019, 20:14 PM