Zalmay Khalilzad
Washington's envoy to Iran?
By: Shawn Sedaghat
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| In May, reports about meetings between
the Iranian and U.S. officials surfaced when it was revealed that
special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad had met with high-ranking Iranians.
While the news stories revolved around whether Iran's government was
discussing re-establishing diplomatic ties with the United States
after a 23-year break in relations, one fact remained clear; Khalilzad
was being utilized once again in the region as an ambassador-at-large.
Who is Zalmay Khalilzad?
Khalilzad, who is an ethnic Pashtun, was born in the northern Afghan
city of Mazar-I-Sharif in the province of Herat. His first visit
to the United States was as an exchange student. Although he returned
to Afghanistan to complete his high school education, he then made
his way to Beirut, Lebanon where he earned an undergraduate degree
from the American University.
Like most of his contemporaries living in the Arab world, Khalilzad
came face to face with the factionalism that later almost ruined
Lebanon in a bloody and prolonged civil war. It is said that during
these years Khalilzad was very much pro-Palestinian.
Khalilzad then returned to the United States in 1979, and earned
his PhD from the University of Chicago, where, according to the
New York Times News Service, "he became the protégé
of a famous hard-line strategic thinker” and his foreign policy
views took on a hawkish outlook. Apparently this person was no other
than Paul Wolfowitz, the current US Deputy Defense Secretary.
Things changed for Khalilzad in a dramatic way in 1984 when he
joined the U.S. State Department for what was to be a one-year fellowship.
His knowledge of the region and his keen sense of finding the right
friends in the right places earned him a permanent position on the
State Department’s Policy Planning Council at a time when the U.S.
was dead set on expelling the Soviets from Afghanistan at any cost.
It was during this period when Khalilzad lobbied for providing
arms to the mujahadeen, including hand-held Stinger anti-aircraft
missiles, which played a key role in the anti-Soviet war. The Taliban
would later use the same Stinger missiles against US forces.
Khalilzad’s friendship with Wolfowitz began in 1985 when the young
Zalmay began serving as Special Advisor to the Under Secretary of
State. Khalilzad was to give advice on the Soviet and Iran-Iraq
war. The U.S. policy in that war by now is common knowledge. Hoping
to stave off an Islamic take over by the Mullahs in Iran or further
strengthening of Saddam, the U.S. opted to help both sides of the
conflict that lasted over eight years at a staggering cost in human
lives.
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| Khalilzad’s
star dimmed during the Clinton years, and as a staunch Republican,
he was not called on in any significant capacity until President Bush
took the helm. However, he would not sit quietly for long. In 1998
he, along with Wolfowitz, signed an open letter to President Bill
Clinton calling for the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.
Khalilzad also worked for UNOCAL, which wanted to secure the Taliban's
support for a proposed pipeline running from Turkmenistan through
Afghanistan to Pakistan.
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During this period Khalilzad also wrote for the US military think
tank RAND. In October 1996 he wrote, "the Taliban does not
practice the anti-US style fundamentalism practiced by Iran.” Philip
Smith writing for the Associated Press in 1998 was quoted as saying
"Khalilzad, along with other oil consultants working on envisioned
pipeline projects in Afghanistan, plus some senior State Department
and CIA officials, advocated a higher level of US engagement with
the Taliban.” Khalilzad was in fact advocating dealing with elements
of the mujahadeen that Washington had to include in its war against
terror.
On December 31, 2001, and in the aftermath of the U.S. take over
of Afghanistan, the White House appointed Zalmay Khalilzad as Special
Presidential Envoy for Afghanistan. Hamid Karzai, a good friend
of Zalmay, was appointed to head the interim government in Kabul,
shortly after that.
On May 23, 2001 Khalilzad was named Special Assistant to Bush and
Senior Director for the Persian Gulf, Southwest Asia and other Regional
Issues at the National Security Counsil. This clearly placed Khalilzad
in charge at the NSC for the Persian Gulf and Central Asia.
In April 2003, with the conclusion of the U.S. war against Iraq,
Khalilzad was appointed as the White House’s Special Envoy to Iraq
where he has been acting as the buffer and arbiter between different
faction vying for power.
It seems that Khalilzad’s stint as the ambassador-at-large to Iraq
and Afghanistan is now extended to Iran. Would he broker a deal
between the White House and the Mullacracy in Iran, or hasten their
departure?
Some observers believe Khalilzad's stints in Washington, D.C. are
part of an older US agenda aimed at securing Washington's foothold
in the mind-boggling natural gas and oil treasures of Iraq and Central
Asia. Whether this is true or our sense of self-preservation and
desire to annihilate terrorism is at work, one thing is clear. Khalilzad’s
frame of mind is hard to gage at any given time.
Khalilzad has changed his tune so often that analyst Anatol Lievan
at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace once said, “If
he was in private business rather than government he would have
been sacked a long time ago.”
Although President Bush labeled the regime of Mullahs in Iran as
a member of Axis of evil, could it be that the U.S. administration
is now making friends with Iran? Given Khalilzad’s vacillating views
on the region, this may be true, if he is the voice giving the advice
to the administration.
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