Years before Zalmay Khalilzad served as America’s emissary to the war zones of Afghanistan and Iraq, he had become adept at straddling countries and cultures. Born in 1951 to a provincial official in Afghanistan, he made his first trip to America as a high-school exchange student in 1966 and when he arrived in his New York hotel was briefly stymied by the Western shower faucets. He learned fast, became an American citizen in 1984 and by early 2001 had a job on the National Security Council as the top staffer for the Middle East. This made him the highest-ranking Muslim in the administration of President George W. Bush.
