McMaster may move Afghanistan envoy position to White House - Politico

The national security adviser looks for more control over U.S. policy in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Aides to President Donald Trump have considered reviving an office the administration shut down months ago that was dedicated to resolving the conflict in Afghanistan, a sign that Trump’s policy there remains unsettled.

Multiple sources said that senior Trump aides have discussed resurrecting the Office of the Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, which was previously based in the State Department, as a White House-based operation.

The discussions suggest that, well after Trump laid out his Afghanistan strategy in August, his aides are still calibrating their diplomatic approach to the 16-year-old conflict, even as they forge ahead with a tougher military posture there. Already, some prominent names are being floated for the special envoy position, including former U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad.

The special representative has generally been the main coordinator in the U.S. government on policy related to Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The new vision for a special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan was laid out in late September by national security adviser H.R. McMaster’s office in a paper shared with Cabinet officials, three former State Department officials told POLITICO. One of the former officials said it represented a move by McMaster to assume greater control over U.S. policy in Afghanistan at a time when the State Department is seen as playing a weak role there.

"If this decision comes about and there is an envoy appointed, it will be a sign that McMaster wants to directly manage implementation of the Afghanistan policy,” the former official said, “and probably also that he's dissatisfied with the degree of attention that the State Department has focused on it.”

The proposal largely mirrors a position created at the State Department early in the Obama administration for its first occupant, the storied diplomat Richard Holbrooke. The office’s prestige faded somewhat after Holbrooke’s death in 2010; subsequent envoys have used the office in different ways, including focusing heavily on trying to jump-start stalled peace talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government. 

“There is no way to carry out the necessary policy development, leadership, influence building and diplomacy required to implement a complex strategy without a full-time senior and empowered official leading the effort,” said James Cunningham, a former U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan.

As word spreads about the possible re-creation of the envoy’s office, several potential candidates’ names have come up in foreign policy circles.

Among them: Khalilzad, a former U.S. ambassador to Iraq and Afghanistan under George W. Bush; retired Army Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute, a national security aide to Bush and U.S. ambassador to NATO under Barack Obama; and even Stephen A. Feinberg, a billionaire financier who owns the DynCorp International military contracting giant and who, like Prince, has reportedly encouraged Trump aides to consider alternative approaches to Afghanistan.

Lute did not respond to a request for comment for this story, and Feinberg declined comment through a spokeswoman. Khalilzad also did not offer comment, but he has talked up the need for a special envoy at Washington gatherings, including one on Monday, according to other attendees.- Read More

McMaster may move Afghanistan envoy position to White ...