The Hail Mary for Peace in Afghanistan by Charles Ray - The National Interest
There are many difficult jobs in the U.S. government today, but Zalmay Khalilzad holds perhaps one of the most excruciatingly painful slots that are available. The former ambassador to Iraq, Afghanistan, and the United Nations has been tasked by the Trump administration to find a way out of the bloody conundrum that is Afghanistan, a country whose people have known nothing but war and turmoil for the last four decades.
Peace in Afghanistan still remains beyond the horizon’s edge. The United States and its allies recently discovered just how quickly a relatively promising negotiation can stall at a moment’s notice when the intra-Afghan dialogue scheduled for Doha this month was postponed due to disagreements over the Afghan government’s large delegation. If the main parties in the room can’t even agree on who will be sitting around the table, then how on earth can Washington organize—let alone sustain—a comprehensive peace process between combatants who openly despise each other? …