Editors Note: We have recieved many emails from our site visitors to feature Dr. Zalmai Khalilzad on our website. Afghanbuzz.com proudly presents Dr. Khalilzad, as an Afghan who has courageously meandered his way to the highest ranking muslim (and Afghan) in the US congress. Attaining such heights of achievement is no commonplace. This section outlines a brief life story of this proud Pashtoon, who was born in Mazari sharif and later moved to US for academic purposes.

Biography:

Early history and education:

Zalmay Khalilzad was born in the city of Mazari Sharif in northern Afghanistan. He is an ethnic Pashtun, from the Kakar tribe. Khalilzad began his education at the private Ghazi Lycée school in Kabul. He immigrated to the United States as a high school exchange student, but attained his Bachelor's and Master's Degrees from the American University of Beirut in Lebanon. Khalilzad received his PhD at the University of Chicago, where he studied closely with strategic thinker Albert Wohlstetter, a prominent nuclear deterrence thinker and an opponent to the disarmament treaties, who provided Zalmay with contacts in the government and with RAND Corporation. From 1979 to 1985, Zalmay Khalilzad was an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs. During that time he worked closely with Zbigniew Brzezinski, the Carter Administration's architect of the policy supporting the Afghan Mujahadeen resistance to the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan.

Personal life:

Zalmay Khalilzad is married to Cheryl Benard, who is a political analyst with the RAND Corporation. She is also the author of several books, including: Civil Democratic Islam, a controversial study of political attitudes in the Middle East, and the science-fiction feminist novel, Turning on the Girls. Khalilzad and Benard have two sons, Alexander, who is 24, and Maximilian, who is 16. Alexander Benard is a student at Stanford Law School.[1]

Career history:

Zalmay Khalilzad with George W. Bush in the Oval Office of the White House. Zalmay Khalilzad with George W. Bush in the Oval Office of the White House. In 1984 Khalilzad accepted a one-year Council on Foreign Relations fellowship to join the State Department, where he worked for Paul Wolfowitz, then the Director of Policy Planning. From 1985 to 1989, Khalilzad served in President Ronald Reagan's Administration as a senior State Department official advising on the Soviet war in Afghanistan and the Iran-Iraq war. During this time he was the State Department's Special Advisor on Afghanistan to Undersecretary of State Michael H. Armacost. In this role he developed and guided the international program to promote the merits of a Mujahideen-led Afghanistan to oust the Soviet occupation. From 1990-1992, Khalilzad later served under President George H. W. Bush in the Defense Department as Deputy Undersecretary for Policy Planning. Between 1993 and 2000, Khalilzad was the Director of the Strategy, Doctrine, and Force Structure at the RAND Corporation. During this time, he helped found RAND's Center for Middle Eastern Studies as well as "Strategic Appraisal," a periodic RAND publication. He also authored several influential monographs, including "The United States and a Rising China" and "From Containment to Global Leadership? America and the World After the Cold War." While at RAND, Khalilzad also had a brief stint consulting for Cambridge Energy Research Associates, which at the time was conducting a risk analysis for Unocal, now part of ConocoPhillips, for a proposed 1,400 km (890 mile), $2-billion, 622 m³/s (22,000 ft³/s) Trans-Afghanistan gas pipeline project which would have extended from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan to Pakistan. He is one of the original members of Project for the New American Century (PNAC) and was a signatory of the letter to President Bill Clinton sent on January 26, 1998, which called for him to accept the aim of "removing Saddam Hussein and his regime from power" using "a full complement of diplomatic, political and military efforts."[2] In 2001, President George W. Bush asked Khalilzad to head the Bush-Cheney transition team for the Department of Defense and Khalilzad briefly served as Counselor to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. In May 2001, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice announced the Khalilzad's appointment as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Southwest Asia, Near East, and North African Affairs at the National Security Council. In December 2002 the President appointed Khalilzad to the position of Ambassador at Large for Free Iraqis with the task of coordinating "preparations for a post-Saddam Hussein Iraq."[3] After the terrorist attacks of 9/11, President Bush came to rely on Khalilzad's Afghanistan expertise. Khalilzad was involved in the early stages of planning to overthrow the Taliban and on December 31st 2001 was selected as Bush's Special Presidential Envoy for Afghanistan. He served in that position until November of 2003, when he was appointed to serve as U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan. Khalilzad held the position of U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan from November 2003 until June 2005. During this time, he oversaw the drafting of Afghanistan's constitution, was involved with the country's first elections, and helped to organize the first meeting of Afghanistan's parliament (the Loya Jirga). It was rumored by some that Hamid Karzai, Afghanistan's President, was very reliant on Khalilzad's guidance, including rumors that Khalilzad pressured other candidates in the election to drop out, leaving Karzai unopposed. However, Khalilzad denied this.[4] Should a Republican win the 2008 Presidential Election, Khalilzad is widely speculated to be a leading candidate to become Secretary of State.

Time as Ambassador to Iraq:

Khalilzad began his job as Ambassador to Iraq on June 21, 2005. He was credited for helping negotiate compromises which allowed the ratification of Iraq's Constitution in October 2005, which allows for the partitioning of Iraq into different regions along ethnic lines. Khalilzad also worked to ensure that the December 2005 elections ran smoothly and played a substantial role in forming the current government. Khalilzad was one of the first high-level Administration officials to warn that sectarian violence was overtaking the insurgency as the number one threat to Iraq's stability. After the Al Askari shrine bombing, in February 2006, he warned that spreading sectarian violence might lead to civil war — and possibly even a broader conflict involving neighboring countries. Khalilzad's term as Ambassador to Iraq ended on March 26, 2007. His replacement is Ryan Crocker, a career diplomat, who was immediately previously the Ambassador to Pakistan.

Ambassador to the U.N.

On February 12, 2007, the White House submitted Khalilzad's nomination to the Senate to become U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations.[5] He was confirmed by the Democratic-Controlled U.S. Senate on March 29, 2007 by a unanimous voice vote.[6] This marked a strong contrast to Khalilzad's predecessor, John Bolton, whose extreme rhetoric and ethical lapses caused him to fail to be confirmed by the Senate resulting in a recess appointment that compromised the credibility of the U.S. delegation. Colleagues at the UN noted that Khalilzad has a different, more reconciling style than Bolton's.[7]

Writing on U.S. leadership

Khalilzad wrote several articles on the subject of the value of U.S. global leadership in the mid-90's. The specific scenarios for conflict he envisioned in the case of a decline in American power have made his writings extremely popular in the world of competitive high school and college policy debate. * Khalilzad, Zalmay (1995). "Losing the moment? The United States and the world after the Cold War". The Washington Quarterly 18:2: 03012.

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