Lord Zalmay

It seemed that the British had the most nerve of any nation on Earth when it came to Afghan politics. Even after the debacle of losing their entire Kabul garrison of 16,000 men, woman and children in 1842 when they attempted to keep their man, Shah Shuja, on the Afghan throne, they returned for yet more bloody noses.

I know that this must be a joke, but just in case it isn’t, we Americans seem prepared to upstage British chutzpah. According to John Barry and Michael Hirsh at Newsweek, Zalmay Khalilzad, the former American ambassador to Afghanistan and Iraq and the current U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, is seriously considering running for Afghan president.

Hamid Karzai is already regarded in many quarters as a stooge of the Americans. I happen to like Hamid as a person, but as with Shah Shuja he’s able to stay on the throne only because of the support of foreign troops.

Now the Afghan-born Khalilzad – a former Rand analyst known in the 1980s for his stubborn intellectual support for the bloodthirsty mujahedin leader Gulbedin Hekmatyar – at least according to this report seems to think he’ll step in and show the Afghans how a country should really be run.

If true, Khalilzad has forgotten the first rule of a westerner going abroad as a reporter or a journalist, which is to avoid the delusions of Lord Jim.

Think 1842. Think overthrow. Think Taliban restoration.