The Envoy: From Kabul to the White House, My Journey Through a Turbulent World

This diplomatic autobiography from the highest-ranking Muslim diplomat in President George W. Bush's administration reflects a mix of subtle, nuanced thinking and apparent disingenuousness. Khalilzad, who was born in Afghanistan, received his doctorate from the University of Chicago, where his adviser told him that in strategic diplomacy, "Mirror imaging%E2%80%94projecting our way of thinking onto others%E2%80%94was a surefire way to misread an opponent." While avoiding that paradigm served him well at the RAND Corporation, think-tank logic ran up against dogmatic policies in the Bush White House after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The book displays Khalilzad's knowledge and agility as a senior National Security Council staffer who worked on post-Taliban Afghanistan policy and, as of December 2002, served as Bush's "special presidential envoy" to the Iraqi opposition. However, it's difficult to reconcile his accounts of scoring tactical successes with difficult counterparts, such as former Afghan president Hamid Kharzai, with the sorry results of American military intervention and postwar influence in the Middle East. While Khalilzad never directly criticizes Bush, he does suggest that the president's thinking was often simplistic, and his observation that "the United States fell far short of its aspirations in Afghanistan and Iraq" runs counter to the company-man tone otherwise found throughout the book. (Mar.)