WASHINGTON: Zalmay Khalilzad, the veteran US envoy whose months of patient hotel-ballroom diplomacy helped end the US war in Afghanistan but failed to prevent a Taliban takeover, resigned on Monday.
In a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Khalilzad defended his record but acknowledged that he came up short and said he wanted to step aside during the “new phase of our Afghanistan policy.”
“The political arrangement between the Afghan government and the Taliban did not go forward as envisaged,” he wrote. “The reasons for this are too complex and I will share my thoughts in the coming day and weeks.”
Born in Afghanistan, the dapper 70-year-old academic turned US diplomat took senior positions as part of the inner circle of former president George W. Bush, becoming the US ambassador to Kabul and then Baghdad and the United Nations.
As former president Donald Trump itched to end America’s longest war in Afghanistan, he brought back Khalilzad, who led exhaustive talks with the Taliban — without including the US-backed government in Kabul.
Those talks led to a February 2020 agreement in which US troops would leave the following year.
But peace negotiations between the Taliban and the leadership in Kabul failed to gain traction, and the government that the United States built over 20 years crumbled within days as US troops left.
Steeped in Afghanistan’s language and customs, Khalilzad was a rare US diplomat able to develop a cordial rapport with Taliban leaders whose regime was toppled by the United States after the September 11, 2001 attacks over its welcome to Al-Qaeda.
Khalilzad, despite his Republican affiliation, was kept in place when Democratic President Joe Biden defeated Trump and decided to go ahead with the withdrawal.
Khalilzad soon became a lightning rod for criticism, with even his superiors in the Biden administration — while voicing respect for him personally — faulting the diplomacy behind the 2020 agreement.
Blinken said that Khalilzad’s deputy, Thomas West, would take over as the special envoy.
West is a longtime aide to Biden, serving on his staff when he was vice president. West has worked for years on South Asia policy including on the US-India civilian nuclear deal.
Shortly before Khalilzad’s resignation became public, the State Department said the United States would not be able to attend a new session called Tuesday by Russia that also includes China and Pakistan, historically the Taliban’s primary backer.
After Trump ended US opposition to speaking to the Taliban, Khalilzad engineered the release from a Pakistani jail of the group’s co-founder Mullah Baradar, seen as a figure who could deliver on promises, and spent months with the largely rural rebels in a luxury hotel in the Qatari capital Doha.
But pictures of him smiling with the Taliban earned him heated criticism in Kabul where some in the now-fallen government as well as newly Western-oriented elite berated him and accused him of selling out Afghanistan.
In interviews last month, Khalilzad said that he had reached a deal with the Taliban in which the insurgents would stay out of Kabul and negotiate a political transition.
But Khalilzad said the deal collapsed when president Ashraf Ghani fled the country on August 15 and the Taliban saw a security vacuum.
Speaking to Foreign Policy, Khalilzad said that the Taliban fulfilled key parts of the February 2020 agreement including not attacking the departing US troops.
“I respect those who say we shouldn’t have negotiated with the Talibs without the government being there. But we don’t know how much more fighting would have taken for the Talibs to agree to that,” he said.
But with no appetite in the United States for another surge of troops in its longest war, “each year we were losing ground to the Talibs,” he said.
“Time was not on our side.”
Husain Haqqani, a former Pakistani ambassador to Washington who is now a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, said that Khalilzad failed in that he “equated US withdrawal with peace.”
“Khalilzad handed the keys of Kabul to the Taliban in return for promises everyone knew the Taliban would not keep,” Haqqani said.
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Khalilzad, US special envoy who brokered Afghan exit, quits
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Khalilzad, US special envoy who brokered Afghan exit, quits
- Steeped in Afghanistan’s language and customs, Khalilzad was rare US envoy able to develop cordial rapport with Taliban
- US secretary of state says Khalilzad’s deputy and longtime Biden aide Thomas West would take over as special envoy
Maduro’s fall tests Venezuela’s ruling ‘club’
- The ousting of Nicolas Maduro as Venezuela’s president puts to the test his “Chavista” factions that have governed the oil-rich nation for 27 years
CARACAS: The ousting of Nicolas Maduro as Venezuela’s president puts to the test his “Chavista” factions that have governed the oil-rich nation for 27 years.
What happens to the so-called “club of five” powerful leftist figures, now that two of its most important members — Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores — have been captured and sent to the United States to face trial?
’Club of five’
Anointed by his mentor Hugo Chavez before the latter’s death in 2013, Maduro kept a tight grip on power until his capture by US forces on Saturday.
Maduro ruled alongside Flores and three other powerful figures: former vice president Delcy Rodriguez — now Venezuela’s interim leader — her brother Jorge, and their rival: hard-line Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello.
“It’s like a club of five,” a diplomatic source in Caracas told AFP under the condition of anonymity.
“They can speak, they have a voice in the government, but Maduro was the one who kept the balance. Now that he’s gone, who knows?“
Maduro and ‘Super Cilita’
The image of Maduro handcuffed and blindfolded as US forces transported him to New York to face trial made headlines around the world.
During months in the crosshairs of US President Donald Trump, who accused him of being a drug trafficker, the 63-year-old former bus driver deflected pressure by dancing to techno music at near-daily rallies, always broadcast live, as he chanted the mantra “No war, yes peace!” — in English.
Frequently underestimated, Maduro managed to eliminate internal resistance and keep the opposition at bay.
Murals, songs and films celebrated him, as did the animated cartoon “Super Moustache,” in which he appeared as a superhero, fighting imperialism alongside “Super Cilita,” who is based on Flores.
Toy figurines of both characters were also produced.
The military swore absolute loyalty to him, led by Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez.
Though defiant at first and calling for Maduro’s return, Venezuela’s interim leader Rodriguez called for a “balanced and respectful relationship” between the South American country and the United States on Sunday.
“The top level of government has survival as its absolute priority,” Antulio Rosales, political scientist and professor at York University in Canada, told AFP.
The Rodriguez siblings
Rodriguez controlled the economy and the oil industry as vice president while her brother Jorge is the speaker of parliament.
They are known for their incendiary rhetoric, often mixing belligerence, irony and insults against the “enemies of the fatherland.”
But behind the scenes, they are skilled political operators.
Jorge Rodriguez was the chief negotiator with the opposition and the United States, and his sister represented Maduro in various international forums.
Experts also attribute purges within government to them, such as one that sent Tareck El Aissami, a powerful oil minister until 2023, to prison.
Rodriguez took over his post shortly afterwards.
The feared policeman
Diosdado Cabello meanwhile is widely feared in Venezuela. Under his ministry, some 2,400 people were detained during protests that followed Maduro’s disputed re-election in 2024, in a move that cowed the opposition.
Cabello is seen as representing the most radical wing of “Chavismo,” and some see him at odds with the pragmatism of the Rodriguez pair, though both sides have denied this.
Cabello acted as president for a few hours when Chavez was overthrown for two days in 2002.
He accompanied Chavez in a failed coup attempt in 1992. Today he is number two in the Socialist Party behind Maduro.
The US courts have now named Cabello among those wanted for trial alongside Maduro.
They have offered $25 million for his capture.
Having kept a low profile in the hours after Maduro’s capture, he appeared by Rodriguez’s side at her first cabinet meeting as acting president on Sunday.
What happens to the so-called “club of five” powerful leftist figures, now that two of its most important members — Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores — have been captured and sent to the United States to face trial?
’Club of five’
Anointed by his mentor Hugo Chavez before the latter’s death in 2013, Maduro kept a tight grip on power until his capture by US forces on Saturday.
Maduro ruled alongside Flores and three other powerful figures: former vice president Delcy Rodriguez — now Venezuela’s interim leader — her brother Jorge, and their rival: hard-line Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello.
“It’s like a club of five,” a diplomatic source in Caracas told AFP under the condition of anonymity.
“They can speak, they have a voice in the government, but Maduro was the one who kept the balance. Now that he’s gone, who knows?“
Maduro and ‘Super Cilita’
The image of Maduro handcuffed and blindfolded as US forces transported him to New York to face trial made headlines around the world.
During months in the crosshairs of US President Donald Trump, who accused him of being a drug trafficker, the 63-year-old former bus driver deflected pressure by dancing to techno music at near-daily rallies, always broadcast live, as he chanted the mantra “No war, yes peace!” — in English.
Frequently underestimated, Maduro managed to eliminate internal resistance and keep the opposition at bay.
Murals, songs and films celebrated him, as did the animated cartoon “Super Moustache,” in which he appeared as a superhero, fighting imperialism alongside “Super Cilita,” who is based on Flores.
Toy figurines of both characters were also produced.
The military swore absolute loyalty to him, led by Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez.
Though defiant at first and calling for Maduro’s return, Venezuela’s interim leader Rodriguez called for a “balanced and respectful relationship” between the South American country and the United States on Sunday.
“The top level of government has survival as its absolute priority,” Antulio Rosales, political scientist and professor at York University in Canada, told AFP.
The Rodriguez siblings
Rodriguez controlled the economy and the oil industry as vice president while her brother Jorge is the speaker of parliament.
They are known for their incendiary rhetoric, often mixing belligerence, irony and insults against the “enemies of the fatherland.”
But behind the scenes, they are skilled political operators.
Jorge Rodriguez was the chief negotiator with the opposition and the United States, and his sister represented Maduro in various international forums.
Experts also attribute purges within government to them, such as one that sent Tareck El Aissami, a powerful oil minister until 2023, to prison.
Rodriguez took over his post shortly afterwards.
The feared policeman
Diosdado Cabello meanwhile is widely feared in Venezuela. Under his ministry, some 2,400 people were detained during protests that followed Maduro’s disputed re-election in 2024, in a move that cowed the opposition.
Cabello is seen as representing the most radical wing of “Chavismo,” and some see him at odds with the pragmatism of the Rodriguez pair, though both sides have denied this.
Cabello acted as president for a few hours when Chavez was overthrown for two days in 2002.
He accompanied Chavez in a failed coup attempt in 1992. Today he is number two in the Socialist Party behind Maduro.
The US courts have now named Cabello among those wanted for trial alongside Maduro.
They have offered $25 million for his capture.
Having kept a low profile in the hours after Maduro’s capture, he appeared by Rodriguez’s side at her first cabinet meeting as acting president on Sunday.
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