Zalmay Khalilzad - Career History

Career History

Presently, Khalilzad serves as the President of Khalilzad Associates, LLC an "international advisory firm that serves clients at the nexus of commerce and public policies, helping global businesses navigate the most promising and challenging international markets." Khalilzad Associates and its parent company Gryphon Capital Partners counts among its clients international and US companies, which are primarily interested in doing business in Iraq and Afghanistan. According to Khalilzad, these include companies in the sectors of energy, construction, education, and infrastructure.

Khalilzad also currently serves as a Counselor at the Center for Strategic International Studies (CSIS) and sits on the Boards of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), America Abroad Media (AAM), the RAND Corporation's Middle East Studies Center, the American University of Iraq in Suleymania (AUIS), and the American University of Afghanistan (AUAF).

From 1979 to 1989, Khalilzad worked as 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 mujahideen resistance to the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan. (See also: Operation Cyclone.)

In 1984, Khalilzad accepted a one-year Council on Foreign Relations fellowship to join the State Department, where he was an advisor to the Near East and South Asia Bureau headed by Richard Murphy. 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 a member of the policy planning staff and 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 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 Chevron, 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 to Afghanistan and further proceeding to Pakistan. As one of the original members of Project for the New American Century, Khalilzad 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."