Zalmay Khalilzad was tasked by two U.S. presidents with negotiating an orderly U.S. exit from Afghanistan. Instead, one year ago, Kabul collapsed, the U.S. mounted a frantic evacuation, and the Taliban took total control.
What he's saying: "It's very unfortunate that we couldn't get a political agreement before the Taliban moved in," Khalilzad tells Axios in a phone interview.
Flashback: There was still a glimmer of hope for a power-sharing deal, he argues, until Aug. 15, 2021.
- The Taliban had agreed to halt its advance outside Kabul and meet a delegation of senior Afghan politicians, including former President Hamid Karzai. But when President Ashraf Ghani fled, Khalilzad says, he left a vacuum.
- The Taliban initially offered to let the U.S. military secure Kabul temporarily, Khalilzad says. Then-CENTCOM Commander Gen. Kenneth McKenzie later testified that there was no "formal offer" from the Taliban, and "we did not have the resources to undertake that mission.”
- Instead, Taliban fighters swept into the city. The militant group later formed a government made up entirely of its own hardliners. The U.S. was out and Khalilzad's mission was over. He left the government last October.
The backstory: An Afghan-born veteran diplomat, Khalilzad was named by Donald Trump as special representative for Afghanistan reconciliation in 2018 and retained by President Biden.
- Both presidents wanted out of Afghanistan. While Khalilzad says he viewed the U.S troop presence as its primary leverage over the Taliban, both presidents saw it as a "burden."
Khalilzad says he and others argued internally that Biden should leave troops in Afghanistan until certain conditions were...