Posted on 12/03/2001 10:55:26 PM PST by kattracks
WASHINGTON, Dec 04, 2001 (AP Online via COMTEX) -- When the terror attacks made the need urgent for an adviser who thoroughly understands Afghanistan, President Bush did not have to look far.
As it happened, a leading foreign policy adviser at the White House is an Afghan-American who had been warning for months about the trouble brewing in his homeland and the need to confront the Taliban.
Zalmay Khalilzad, an ethnic Pashtun who dresses with a European flair, is finding his expertise in demand at the top levels of the Bush administration. Prescriptions he laid out last winter, when America was at peace, are very much at play in the war.
"He knows Afghanistan in a way that no other high official in the administration does," said Charles Fairbanks, director of the Central Asia Caucasus Institute. "It's amazing good fortune for the country."
Khalilzad currently is in Germany helping cobble together a post-Taliban government for his homeland.
Last winter, before he was appointed to the National Security Council, he outlined his recommendations for U.S. policy goals in Afghanistan in an article published by The Washington Quarterly. Most of his ideas have materialized as policy since Bush began the war on terrorism.
In the article, Khalilzad suggested that Washington change the balance of power in Afghanistan by fracturing the ruling Taliban militia from within and offering assistance to the anti-Taliban northern alliance.
"Though policy-makers are loath to say it openly, Afghanistan is ruled by a rogue regime, the Taliban," he wrote. "Acting now is essential."
Khalilzad advised that Voice of America broadcasts in Afghan languages be expanded to give opponents of the Taliban more air time. He said the United States should pressure Pakistan to withdraw its support of the Taliban. The Bush administration embraced both ideas.
While his influence is clearly being felt behind the scenes, Khalilzad's persona is hardly that of a vanilla-flavored technocrat.
Colleagues call the suave and savvy 50-year-old, who has worked at both the State and Defense departments, charming, even playful. He's a sharp dresser, they say, who shuns the basic gray suit of American bureaucracy in favor of clothes with a Parisian or Milanese flair.
"He has the kind of vitality and spirit one doesn't usually see in public officials," Fairbanks said. "He can be a little boisterous. I'm sure he knows how to do bureaucratic maneuvers, but he's a more colorful figure.
"He enjoys parties. He is very amusing and animated."
The White House turned down requests to interview Khalilzad.
Khalilzad was born in Mazar-e-Sharif the son of a government worker who moved the family to Kabul. Khalilzad, from an upper-class family, studied at American University in Beirut and earned a doctorate in 1979 at the University of Chicago.
Between 1985 and 1989, Khalilzad worked at the State Department, advising on the Iran-Iraq war and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. In 1991 and 1992, he was assistant deputy undersecretary of defense for policy planning, working under Paul Wolfowitz, now in the No. 2 seat at the Pentagon.
During the Clinton years, Khalilzad worked on defense and political issues at the Washington office of Rand, a policy think tank. After Bush was elected, Vice President Dick Cheney named him to head Bush's transition team for defense. In May, Khalilzad was named special assistant to the president and senior director at the NSC for the Persian Gulf, southwest Asia and other issues in the region.
"Zalmay is immensely influential in driving U.S. policy toward Afghanistan," said Philip Smith, a longtime analyst on Afghanistan who directs the Center for Public Policy Analysis. "With his past experience at the Pentagon, I think he's helping to map out strategy and tactics and much of the day-to-day operations."
Khalilzad wasn't always helping wage war against the Taliban.
After the Taliban captured Kabul in 1996, Khalilzad, like many other experts on Afghanistan, hoped the Taliban would bring stability to the country, which had slipped into a cycle of brutal fighting among warlords after the Soviet invasion ended in 1989.
"The Taliban does not practice the anti-U.S. style of fundamentalism practiced by Iran," Khalilzad, then a senior strategist at Rand, wrote in October 1996.
About four years ago, Khalilzad helped entertain Taliban leaders in Texas. At the time, Khalilzad was a consultant for a company hired by the California-based Unocal Corp., which was trying to get the Taliban to back a multibillion-dollar pipeline through Afghanistan. The country's instability eventually derailed the project.
A year later, terrorists thought to have trained in Afghanistan bombed two U.S. embassies in Africa.
Prior to the bombings in August 1998, oil company executives in the United States were aggressively seeking diplomatic recognition for the Taliban government and World Bank financing for pipeline projects, analyst Smith said.
"During this period, 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 U.S. engagement with the Taliban," Smith said. "To a large degree there has been a complete about-face. The United States no longer seeks to engage the Taliban, but seeks to overthrow the regime."
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On the Net: Library of Congress country study on Afghanistan: http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/aftoc.html
By DEB RIECHMANN Associated Press Writer
Copyright 2001 Associated Press, All rights reserved
Last winter...Khalilzad suggested that Washington change the balance of power in Afghanistan by fracturing the ruling Taliban militia from within and offering assistance to the anti-Taliban northern alliance..."Though policy-makers are loath to say it openly, Afghanistan is ruled by a rogue regime, the Taliban," he wrote. "Acting now is essential."
By last year he had decided they were a problem.
After the Taliban captured Kabul in 1996, Khalilzad, like many other experts on Afghanistan, hoped the Taliban would bring stability to the country, which had slipped into a cycle of brutal fighting among warlords after the Soviet invasion ended in 1989.
"The Taliban does not practice the anti-U.S. style of fundamentalism practiced by Iran," Khalilzad, then a senior strategist at Rand, wrote in October 1996.
About four years ago, Khalilzad helped entertain Taliban leaders in Texas. At the time, Khalilzad was a consultant for a company hired by the California-based Unocal Corp., which was trying to get the Taliban to back a multibillion-dollar pipeline through Afghanistan
However about 4 years ago he was attempting to have US corporations work with them.
Afghanistan has gone from one of Washington's greatest foreign policy triumphs to one of its most profound failures. During the Cold War, U.S. support to the anti-Soviet Afghan resistance resulted in a debacle for Moscow, humiliating the vaunted Red Army and discrediting the Soviets throughout the Muslim world. After the Soviets withdrew, however, Afghanistan has become a disaster for U.S. policy. The master terrorist 'Usama bin Laden has taken shelter in Afghanistan, using it as a base to indoctrinate and train militants who strike at the United States and its allies. Afghan women face a horrifying array of restrictions, among the most repressive in the world. The country is now the world's leading producer of opium, which in turn is used to produce heroin. These problems, however, are only symptoms of a more dangerous disease. Though policymakers are loathe to say it openly, Afghanistan is ruled by a rogue regime, the Taliban. The outrages that draw headlines in the West stem from its misrule and will continue as long as the movement dominates Afghanistan. If anything, the danger is growing. "Talibanism"--a radical, backward, and repressive version of Islam similar to the Saudi "Wahhabi" credo but rejected by the vast majority of Muslims worldwide--is gaining adherents outside Afghanistan and spreading to other countries in the region.
Acting now is essential. The Taliban has consolidated its influence in Afghanistan over the last five years. Soon the movement will be too strong to turn away from rogue behavior. It will gain more influence with insurgents, terrorists, and narcotics traffickers and spread its abusive ideology throughout the region.
Unfortunately, the Clinton administration has ignored the challenge of the Taliban. Some administration officials tacitly favored the group when it emerged between 1994 and 1995, underestimating the threat it posed to regional stability and to U.S. interests. Officials in the State Department and other concerned bureaucracies have too few resources with which to oppose the movement. Their admonitions have little influence with regional states or the Taliban. More important, they operate in a policy vacuum. U.S. concerns about human rights, drugs, and terrorism are not coordinated as part of an overall strategy for protecting U.S. interests in the region. Afghanistan policy drifts according to the political concerns of the moment, without a comprehensive strategy to guide our actions.
Perhaps it wasn't just luck or quick wits that enabled Bush and his advisors to react so clearly and decisively to 9/11. They were ready.
National Security Advisor Dr. Condoleezza Rice announced today the appointment of Dr. Zalmay Khalilzad as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Gulf, Southwest Asia and Other Regional Issues, National Security Council.
Dr. Khalilzad headed the Bush-Cheney Transition team for the Department of Defense and has been a Counselor to Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld. Between 1993 and 1999, Dr. Khalilzad was Director of the Strategy, Doctrine and Force Structure program for RAND's Project Air Force. While with RAND, he founded the Center for Middle Eastern Studies. Between 1991 and 1992, Dr. Khalilzad served as Assistant Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Planning. He also served as a senior political scientist at RAND and an associate professor at the University of California at San Diego in 1989 and 1991. From 1985 to 1989 at the Department of State, Dr. Khalilzad served as Special Advisor to the Under Secretary of State for Policy working policy issues, advising on the Iran-Iraq War, and the Soviet War in Afghanistan. From 1979 to 1989, Dr. Khalilzad was an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Columbia University.
Dr. Khalilzad holds a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago (1979). He lives in Maryland with his wife Cheryl Benard and their two children, Alexander and Max.
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