Zalmay Khalilzad Appointed As U.S. Special Adviser To Afghanistan

AVA- Secretary of State Mike Pompeo confirmed the appointment on Tuesday.
"Ambassador Khalilzad is going to join the State Department team to assist us in the reconciliation effort, so he will come on and be the State Department's lead person for that purpose," Pompeo told reporters aboard a flight bound for Pakistan.
Khalilzad will "be full-time focused on developing the opportunities to get the Afghans and the Taliban to come to a reconciliation. That will be his singular mission statement," Pompeo said.
During the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Khalilzad, 67, played a key role in rebuilding and reimagining governments in both countries. He had a hand in Afghanistan's first post-Taliban elections and in crafting the constitution of Iraq.
"He became known for his ability to weave through warring tribal factions and his ability to quickly get senior Afghan officials on the phone or to summon them to his office, including President Hamid Karzai," The New York Times reported during Khalilzad's stint as ambassador to Afghanistan — the country of his birth — from 2003 to 2005.
Robin Raphel, a former assistant secretary of state for South Asia, says Khalilzad's appointment is a sign that the Trump administration is getting serious about a political solution to America's longest war.
"I think that's important," she says, "and personally I think that's long overdue, because I think everybody realizes — and I include in this the Taliban — that things in Afghanistan are getting too fractured, that there are too many players and Afghanistan could become the next Syria if attention is not paid to the political as well as the military dimensions."
Raphel has been involved in U.S. Track II diplomacy with the Taliban, and a top State Department official has had recent contacts, too. This is something that Khalilzad could build on, Raphel says.
"He's a very experienced guy," she says. "He knows the political and cultural terrain in the region. He's a gifted diplomat. So I think the potential is for him to bring a lot."
Former U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Ronald Neumann is skeptical.
"He's a great deal-maker, but I don't know if there's a deal to be made," he says.
Neumann cites recent advances by the Taliban, and says the U.S. needs to be committed to the fight as well as to the diplomacy. As for the Taliban, he says, they haven't moved from their position that they will only negotiate with the U.S. — and only about America's withdrawal from Afghanistan.
"At the end of the day, they have to be willing to negotiate with the Afghan government," he says. "We can't negotiate how Afghans will live with each other."
President Trump ordered an increase in troop levels as part of his Afghan strategy last year, but has grown frustrated with the war's progress.