It’s hard to know what to make of news that Zalmay Khalilzad, a native of Afghanistan and formerly the U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan, Iraq, and the United Nations, may be returning to Afghanistan to take a staff position under Hamid Karzai as that country’s “Chief Executive Officer.” My first reaction was: At least he’s given up running for president of Afghanistan — a quixotic quest. My second reaction was: He will provide a much-needed boost to Karzai in the same way that he did when he was ambassador in Kabul in 2003-2005.
At the time, Khalilzad pushed and prodded Karzai to make tough governance decisions. Since Khalilzad left, no one has been exerting a comparable influence on Karzai and as a result Afghanistan’s government has drifted. But there are big differences between the role Khalilzad played in 2003-2005 and the one he might play in the future.
Advising Karzai from a perch at the U.S. Embassy is one thing; running the Afghan government on Karzai’s behalf is considerably more difficult. For all his virtues — and they are many — Khalilzad does not have a reputation as being an especially adroit administrator. The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad was a shambles when he ran it. Moreover, Khalilzad is and will remain a U.S. citizen. As a foreigner, will he have the needed authority to impose his will on Afghan’s government or would his appointment undercut Karzai’s own legitimacy?
It’s impossible to reach a definitive judgment on the possibility of Khalilzad’s appointment. It is, however, an intriguing possibility because it might auger the return of other emigres such as former Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani (currently running a doomed but noble campaign against Karzai) and former Interior Minister Ali Jelali (currently a professor at National Defense University in Washington). They played a vital role in the post-2001 transition by offering much needed technocratic expertise but then they left (or were pushed out) and Karzai governed the country virtually alone with a bunch of warlords, hacks, and drug dealers. If they come back into politics, they could provide a much-needed boost to Afghanistan’s government whose terrible performance and rampant corruption remain major hindrances in the war against the Taliban.
