Zalmay Khalilzad, the important thing negotiator in one of many largest US diplomatic debacles in current reminiscence, may nonetheless be on monitor to return as Donald Trump’s mediator with the Taliban, consultants say.
Final week Khalilzad, an Afghan-born diplomat who was chargeable for mediating talks that led to America’s chaotic navy withdrawal from Afghanistan, was pictured accompanying an American hostage launched from Taliban custody.
Khalilzad appeared alongside George Glezmann, an airline mechanic from Atlanta who was captured by the Taliban in December 2022 throughout a vacationer go to to Afghanistan. Formally, Glezmann was launched in a take care of the Trump administration brokered by Qatari negotiators.
But it surely was Khalilzad who travelled to Kabul, met with the Taliban’s overseas ministry officers after which accompanied the American again to the US. He then took to Twitter to verify Glezmann’s launch, calling it a “good day”.
Consultants monitoring Afghanistan say the Trump administration may as soon as once more be turning to Khalilzad to take care of the Taliban, together with round reported early-stage discussions to reopen the US embassy in Kabul. That will be a significant enhance by way of worldwide recognition for the militant regime that has been globally condemned for its assault on girls’s rights.
Khalilzad was the “architect” of the Trump administration’s mistaken perception that the Taliban had modified as an organisation since its misogynistic regime of the late ‘90s and early 2000s, earlier than it was ousted from energy within the wake of the 9/11 assaults, argues David Loyn, writer of The Lengthy Warfare.
“There are talks that Trump would possibly need to ship him to Kabul as a full-time envoy. He had an extremely troublesome hand to play in 2019 as a result of Trump wished an finish to the battle. It was similar to what Individuals are doing with Putin now. They’re reducing out the principle gamers – Afghan nationals on this case,” Loyn tells The Unbiased.
“Donald Trump is principally excited and attracted by how Khalilzad was their negotiator and developed the sense that he may speak to the Taliban on behalf of the Individuals as a Washington operator,” says Loyn.
But when they’re nonetheless listening to his recommendation now, the Trump administration, in his opinion, are “making a mistake”, he says. “Khalilzad has been flawed and naive about Taliban 2.0 earlier than and there’s no purpose why his evaluation needs to be any higher this time.”
Khalilzad has served as a negotiator with rulers of Afghanistan for greater than 4 many years, together with with the Soviets in 1989 when the Russians withdrew from Afghanistan.
He stepped down in October 2021 after serving because the US particular envoy for Afghanistan for greater than three years below each the Trump and Biden administrations.
Khalilzad was introduced onboard by Washington in September 2018 by then secretary of state Mike Pompeo to steer negotiations with the Taliban and the Afghan republic authorities led by Ashraf Ghani.
A fluent Pashto and Dari speaker, Khalilzad didn’t dealer a power-sharing deal between the Taliban and Afghanistan’s democratically-elected leaders. The place he did succeed was in negotiating an settlement with the Taliban to finish America’s longest-running battle, which noticed US troops go away Afghanistan after 20 years. The settlement was signed within the Qatari capital Doha and paved the best way in direction of a full withdrawal of overseas troopers from Afghanistan, as America’s Nato allies had little selection however to comply with go well with.
Quite a lot of officers from the Biden administration blamed the deal negotiated by Khalilzad for forcing their palms when it got here to the velocity of the pullout, and permitting the Taliban to swiftly take over the nation unopposed. The largest victims of the Taliban’s takeover have been Afghan girls, whose basic rights on issues corresponding to schooling and employment have been stripped away.
An lively commentator through his X social media account, Khalilzad is repeatedly met with disapproving remarks from Afghans below his posts. Final week, he advocated for an extended transition interval of energy in Afghanistan. “You shut up. There is no such thing as a want (for) your recommendation,” one consumer angrily replied.
Khalilzad has admitted that the Nato withdrawal from Afghanistan had not gone as deliberate, saying this was as a result of the Taliban didn’t enter severe peace talks with the Afghan authorities as had been agreed.
However he has repeatedly defended his function within the Doha talks, saying his negotiating place was undermined by public statements and briefings from the White Home that America was on the point of withdrawing from Afghanistan. He informed the congressional Committee on Overseas Affairs in November 2023 that “navy power” was the most important supply of leverage the US had over the Taliban.
“I’d say to our leaders right here generally that, if we preserve saying we’re getting out regardless, that does not give me quite a lot of leverage. [They would say] ‘Okay. Understood, Zal.’ However then it could solely final every week or two days.”
The Unbiased has reached out to Khalilzad for remark.
Kabir Taneja, deputy director of strategic research and a fellow on the Center East at India’s Observer Analysis Basis, says Trump has talked himself right into a nook by committing publicly to restoring some type of American affect in Afghanistan. “Up to now few months, Trump has made unfastened remarks about not permitting China and Russia to run amok within the Afghanistan and central Asia area with none American presence, and American weapons left again in Afghanistan,” says Taneja.
“So the one one he can faucet into proper now’s Khalilzad – somebody he’s conversant in. It’s extra about familiarity and Trump’s interior circle greater than the rest and he’s in Trump’s interior circle, clearly.”