Zalmay Khalilzad

Zalmay Khalilzad
U.S. Special Adviser to Afghanistan
Incumbent
Assumed office September 5, 2018
President	Donald Trump
Preceded by	Position established
26th United States Ambassador to the United Nations
In office April 30, 2007 – January 22, 2009
President	George W. Bush Barack Obama
Preceded by	John R. Bolton
Succeeded by	Susan Rice
United States Ambassador to Iraq
In office June 21, 2005 – March 26, 2007
President	George W. Bush
Preceded by	John Negroponte
Succeeded by	Ryan Crocker
United States Ambassador to Afghanistan
In office November 28, 2003 – June 20, 2005
President	George W. Bush
Preceded by	Robert Finn
Succeeded by	Ronald E. Neumann
Personal details
Born	Zalmay Mamozy Khalilzad (1951-03-22) March 22, 1951 Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan
Political party	Republican
Spouse(s)	Cheryl Benard
Children	2 (Alexander and Maximilian)
Education	American University of Beirut (BA, MA) University of Chicago (PhD)

Zalmay Mamozy Khalilzad (Pashto/Persian: زلمی خلیلزاد Zalmay Khalīlzād; born March 22, 1951) is a US diplomat and a counselor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and the president of Gryphon Partners and Khalilzad Associates, an international business consulting firm, based in Washington, DC. He was the US Ambassador to the United Nations, under President George W. Bush. On September 5, 2018, Khalilzad was appointed by President Donald Trump to serve as a special envoy to Afghanistan.

He has been involved with US policymakers in the State Department and the Pentagon since the mid-1980s, and he was the highest-ranking Muslim American in the George W. Bush administration.^[1]

Khalilzad's previous assignments in the administration included US Ambassador to Afghanistan and US Ambassador to Iraq.

In 2017, he was considered for US Secretary of State in the Trump administration.^[2]

Early life and education

Khalilzad was born in Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan, and grew up the country's capital Kabul.^[3] His parents originated from Laghman Province, and the family moved to Mazar-i-Sharif when his father was a government official, under the Musahiban monarchy of Mohammed Zahir Shah.

Khalilzad began his education at the public Ghazi Lycée school in Kabul. He first spent time in the United States as a Ceres, California, high school exchange student with AFS Intercultural Programs. Later, he attained his bachelor's and his master's degrees from the American University of Beirut, in Lebanon. Khalilzad received his doctorate at the University of Chicago, United States, where he studied closely with strategic thinker Albert Wohlstetter, a prominent nuclear deterrence thinker and strategist. Wohlstetter provided Khalilzad with contacts within the government and RAND.^[1]

Early career

From 1979 to 1989, Khalilzad worked as an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs. During that time, he worked closely with Zbigniew Brzezinski, the Carter administration's architect of Operation Cyclone to support the mujahideen, who resisted the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan.^[1]

In 1984, Khalilzad accepted a one-year Council on Foreign Relations fellowship to join the US State Department, where he was an advisor to the Near East and South Asia Bureau, headed by Richard W. Murphy.

From 1985 to 1989, Khalilzad served in the Reagan administration, as a senior State Department official, advising on the Soviet–Afghan War, after the Soviet invasion. During that time, he was a member of the Policy Planning Staff and the State Department's Special Advisor on Afghanistan to Undersecretary of State Michael H. Armacost. In that role, he developed and guided the international program to promote the merits of a mujahideen-led Afghanistan ousting the Soviet occupation. From 1990 to 1992, Khalilzad served under President George H. W. Bush in the US Defense Department, as Deputy Undersecretary for Policy Planning.

Between 1993 and 2000, Khalilzad was the director of the Strategy, Doctrine, and Force Structure at the RAND Corporation. During that time, he helped found RAND's Center for Middle Eastern Studies as well as "Strategic Appraisal," a RAND periodical. He also authored several influential monographs, including "The United States and a Rising China" and "From Containment to Global Leadership? America and the World After the Cold War." At RAND, he also had a brief stint in consulting for Cambridge Energy Research Associates, which was conducting a risk analysis for Unocal, now part of Chevron, for a proposed q400 km (890 mi), $2-billion, 622 m³/s (22,000 ft³/s) Trans-Afghanistan gas pipeline project, which would have extended from Turkmenistan to Afghanistan and then proceeded to Pakistan.

US Ambassador to Afghanistan

Khalilzad presenting President George W. Bush a ballot from the first democratic election in Afghanistan on October 18, 2004.

In 2001, President George W. Bush asked Khalilzad to head the Bush-Cheney transition team for the Department of Defense, and Khalilzad briefly served as Counselor to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. In May 2001, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice announced Khalilzad's appointment as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Southwest Asia, Near East, and North African Affairs at the US National Security Council. In December 2002, Bush appointed Khalilzad to the position of Ambassador at Large for Free Iraqis with the task of coordinating "preparations for a post-Saddam Hussein Iraq."^[6]

After the terrorist attacks of 9/11, Bush came to rely on Khalilzad's Afghanistan expertise. Khalilzad was involved in the early stages of planning to overthrow the Taliban and on December 31, 2001, he was selected as Bush's Special Presidential Envoy for Afghanistan. He served in that position until November 2003, when he was appointed to serve as US ambassador to Afghanistan. Khalilzad held that position from November 2003 until June 2005.

During that time, he oversaw the drafting of the constitution of Afghanistan, was involved with the country's first elections and helped to organize the first meeting of Afghanistan's Loya Jirga(traditions grand assembly). At the June 2002 Loya Jirga to select the Head of State, representatives of the US convinced the former king of Afghanistan, 87-year-old Zahir Shah, to withdraw from consideration even though a majority of Loya Jirga delegates supported him. That move angered Pashtuns, who were concerned with the disproportionate power of the Northern Alliance in the Karzai government.^[7] During Khalilzad's tenure as ambassador, the new Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, consulted closely with him on a regular basis about political decisions, and the two dined together regularly.^[8][9] In 2004 and 2005, he was also involved in helping with the establishment of the American University of Afghanistan (AUAF), which is the first American-style higher learning educational institution in Afghanistan.^[10] In 2016, the Friends of the American University of Afghanistan presented him with the International Public Service Award.

US Ambassador to Iraq

Khalilzad with Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice, and Iraqi President Jalal Talabani in April 2006.

Khalilzad began his job as US Ambassador to Iraq on June 21, 2005. He was credited for helping negotiate compromises which allowed the ratification of the Constitution of Iraq in October 2005. Khalilzad also worked to ensure that the December 2005 elections ran smoothly and played a substantial role in forming the first post-Saddam government. Khalilzad also helped establish the American University of Iraq, in Sulaimaniya, and sits on its board of regents.^[11]

In comparison to his predecessors, Paul Bremer and John Negroponte, in Baghdad, Khalilzad was considered a success as US ambassador and credited with bringing a cultural sophistication and human touch to the job that helped connect with Iraqis.^[12]

Khalilzad was one of the first high-level administration officials to warn that sectarian violence was overtaking the insurgency as the top threat to Iraq's stability. After the Al Askari Mosque bombing, in February 2006, he warned that spreading sectarian violence might lead to civil war and possibly to even a broader conflict, involving neighboring countries. Khalilzad sought political solutions to the problem of sectarianism, and in particular, he worked to integrate the balance of power between Iraq's three main ethnic groups to head off growing the growing>Sunni violence.^[12]

Khalilzad's term as ambassador ended on March 26, 2007. He was replaced by Ryan Crocker, a career diplomat and former US ambassador to Pakistan.

US Ambassador to the United Nations

Khalilzad at the 2008 World Economic Forum, in Switzerland.

On February 12, 2007, the White House submitted Khalilzad's nomination to the Senate to become the US ambassador to the United Nations.^[13] He was unanimously confirmed by the Democratic-controlled US Senate on March 29, 2007.^[14] That marked a strong contrast to Khalilzad's predecessor, John R. Bolton, whose often-controversial rhetoric caused him to fail to be confirmed by the Senate but obtained a recess appointment.

Colleagues at the UN noted that Khalilzad has a different style from Bolton and was more conciliatory.^[15]

In November 2007, Khalilzad charged that Iran was helping the insurgent groups in Afghanistan and Iraq. He also told the media, soon after the International Atomic Energy Agency's release of its report on Iran, that the Iranian government was clearly going ahead with its nuclear program. Khalilzad explained that the US would try to pass another resolution in the Security Council, under Chapter 7, to impose additional sanctions against Iran.^[16]

Khalilzad, like most US politicians, supported Kosovo's declaration of independence. In 2017, he was awarded the Order of Independence medal from Kosovo President Hashim Thaçi.

In August 2008, he urged the Security Council to "take urgent action" and to "condemn Russia's military assault on the sovereign state of Georgia,"^[17]. He also stated that Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov had told US Secretary of State Rice that Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili "must go."^[18]

Recent career

Since 2009, Khalilzad has served as the President of Khalilzad Associates, LLC, an "international advisory firm that serves clients at the nexus of commerce and public policies, helping global businesses navigate the most promising and challenging international markets."^[19] Khalilzad Associates and its parent company, Gryphon Capital Partners, have, as clients, international and US companies that interested mainly in doing business in Iraq and Afghanistan. According to Khalilzad, they include companies in the sectors of energy, construction, education, and infrastructure.^[20]

On September 9, 2014, news items appeared in the Austrian media, stating that Khalilzad was being investigated by authorities in Austria for suspected money laundering and that his wife's accounts had been frozen.^[21] On September 10, the Austrian court made known that the case had been dismissed and the accounts had been ordered unfrozen a week earlier, on September 3. The leak was the result of court documents having been discarded unshredded in the general trash, and then found by scavenging bloggers.^[22]

Khalilzad now serves as a Counselor at the Center for Strategic International Studies (CSIS) and sits on the Boards of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), America Abroad Media (AAM), the RAND Corporation's Middle East Studies Center, the Atlantic Council, the American University of Iraq in Suleymania (AUIS), The American University of Kurdistan (AUK), and the American University of Afghanistan (AUAF).^[23]

In 2015, he donated over $100,000 to the Atlantic Council, a US thinktank.^[24]

Khalilzad's political autobiography, The Envoy: From Kabul to the White House, My Journey Through a Turbulent World, was published by St. Martin's Press in 2016.

Personal life

Khalilzad is a Sunni Muslim and an ethnic Pashtun.^[25][26] He is fluent in Pashto, Dari, Arabic, English and Urdu.^[27]

Khalilzad's wife is author and political analyst Cheryl Benard. They met in 1972 while they were both students at the American University of Beirut. They have two children: Alexander and Maximilian.

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Zalmay Khalilzad.

• Appearances on C-SPAN
• Zalmay Khalilzad on Charlie Rose
• Zalmay Khalilzad on IMDb
• Works by or about Zalmay Khalilzad in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• "Zalmay Khalilzad collected news and commentary". The New York Times.

Articles

• Losing the Moment? The United States and the World After the Cold War
• The Washington Post – Afghan Roots Keep Adviser Firmly in the Inner Circle
• US Mission to the UN – United States Ambassadors to the United Nations
• Current Biography August 2006 cover story
• The New Yorker – American Viceroy
• RFE/RL interview with Zalmay Khalilzad (May 18, 2007)
• Zalmay.com, a profile view
• Profile: Khalilzad, The Center for Cooperative Research
• Video: Khalilzad discusses Iraq, Afghanistan and the Middle East
• The Long Shadow of a Neocon
• What to Read on Afghan Politics 2010