Ashraf Ghani (left) and Zalmay Khalilzad (right)

Eisa Ayoobi via The Globe Post:  Ashraf Ghani and Zalmay Khalilzad have been the most influential Afghan-Americans to impact U.S.-Afghanistan relations over the decades. Their education and Washington-based experience have earned them rhetoric sway and a vastly influential network of friends. However, their ethnonationalism-aspired Afghanistan “vision” has cost the U.S. thousands of lives and “trillions of dollars.” The perplexing “Afghan war” has also resulted in a severe damage to the U.S. image as the world’s mightiest military. Since his “capture” of the presidency in 2014, Ghani’s vision has revealed to be that of a Pashtun “nation-state,” an old mirage pursued by a British India client-king, Abd al-Rahman Khan, known as “The Iron Amir” (1880-1901). That king did not only leave a patron-client legacy but also a delusion for his tribal heirs who have been failing to deliver for centuries. Click here to read more (external link).