With No Resources, Authority or Country, Afghan Ambassador Presses On

WASHINGTON — The striped emblem inactive flies successful beforehand of the Embassy of Afghanistan here, though the Taliban person utilized a achromatic 1 since they reclaimed the state this summer. The embassy staff, loyal to a authorities that nary longer exists, is skeletal and mostly unpaid, and it isn’t adjacent wide that the lights volition stay connected adjacent month.

Still, Adela Raz, who began to service arsenic the Afghan government’s ambassador to Washington conscionable weeks earlier the Taliban took over, is trying her champion to usage what is near of her powerfulness (unknown), resources (virtually nonexistent) and devotion to her homeland (vast) to assistance displaced Afghans and convey others who person supported their cause. At the apical of her list: American veterans who served successful Afghanistan during 20 years of war.

“I americium inactive here,” said Ms. Raz, who continues to enactment from the embassy without enactment with the Taliban. Her days, she said, person been “difficult and dark, and afloat of disappointment and shock,” arsenic she sits successful an embassy representing a defunct government, successful unfastened absorption to the 1 that replaced it.

On Wednesday night, she hosted a tiny meal for veterans astatine what was near of the embassy. “I genuinely realized that it is hard for them arsenic well,” she said.

“Many are questioning the full thing: ‘Did our concern wage off? Did we bash the close happening oregon not?’ To maine that was precise important, for these veterans to perceive from america that we are grateful for what you’ve done,” she said.

Embassy events are usually lavish affairs, but this 1 reflected a caller era. Ms. Raz acceptable the array herself and helped constitute sanction tags. No white-gloved work this time, conscionable a buffet. She worked with seasoned organizations crossed the governmental spectrum — who had ft the measure for the meal — to prime 20 veterans to attend.

“Your contributions made a difference,” she told the group. “We whitethorn person mislaid a country, but we haven’t mislaid the nation. They are each inactive here. You should beryllium proud.”

Over accepted Afghan dishes of spinach, lamb dumplings, pumpkin and rice, and bread, the veterans reminisced astir their clip successful the country. They talked astir their interactions with children who were successful schoolhouse for the archetypal time, and with women voting for the archetypal time, and pondered whether buzkashi, a determination sport, would beryllium viable successful the United States, though warring implicit a slaughtered goat seemed harrowing to some.

During a dessert of beverage and atom pudding, Col. Abdul Barakzai, Afghan’s subject attaché, appealed for assistance evacuating much Afghan troops and imagined, possibly naïvely, a aboriginal successful which they would again combat alongside Americans against “bad guys.”

It was a sentiment with peculiar piquancy fixed the failure of Afghan forces to stave disconnected the illness of their state successful the end, and fixed the thousands of Afghans who person struggled mightily to get their promises of transition to the United States fulfilled aft helping conjugation forces implicit the years.

Gone were the Afghan musicians who had animated truthful galore dinners astatine the embassy before, little due to the fact that of constraints connected budgets than due to the fact that of those connected her affectional reserves.

“I can’t bash that,” she said, recalling a fund-raising lawsuit not agelong aft the Afghan authorities fell successful August, during which a accepted set played the nationalist anthem. “It was mode excessively emotional,” Ms. Raz said. “I was crying truthful loud, I had to spell upstairs to my bureau to calm down.”

Ms. Raz was 16 years aged erstwhile American forces invaded Afghanistan aft the attacks of Sept. 11. Their accomplishment heralded a caller aboriginal for her and different Afghan women and girls, and she rapidly enrolled successful precocious school. She aboriginal attended some Simmons College (now called Simmons University) and the Fletcher School astatine Tufts University successful the United States connected scholarship.

In 2013, she returned to Afghanistan to service successful elder authorities roles. In 2018, she became Afghanistan’s archetypal pistillate ambassador to the United Nations, and, successful July, she was appointed ambassador to the United States and moved present with her 2 daughters, 4 and 2. “I was conscionable settling myself,” she said, “then the roller coaster started with everything.”

The illness of Afghanistan began connected Aug. 6, with the autumn of a occidental provincial superior to Taliban powers. By Aug. 15, the group’s fighters had seized Kabul, arsenic Americans began a chaotic and, astatine times, deadly evacuation of tens of thousands of people.

Ms. Raz spent her abbreviated authoritative tenure pressing the Biden medication to intervene much forcefully to assistance women near behind. Her aboriginal is unclear — volition she someway stay ambassador, or, much likely, find a mode to alteration her migration presumption to enactment here?

Foreign embassies that had closed implicit information concerns are starting to instrumentality to Kabul. The Biden medication is not expected to reopen the U.S. Embassy immoderate clip soon; instead, it has asked the Qatari government to correspond immoderate of its diplomatic interests successful Afghanistan, including consular services. The Taliban person stepped up nonstop discussions, including a gathering this week successful Doha, Qatar, that a State Department authoritative described arsenic “a continuation of pragmatic diplomacy.”

At the extremity of the evening connected Wednesday, Ms. Raz looked wistfully crossed the array she had set, noting that the gathering brought backmost “the tone of the aged days astatine the embassy.” As the veterans finished their beverage and made their mode downstairs, she said, “This place, arsenic agelong arsenic it is open, is your 2nd home.”

Lara Jakes contributed reporting.