Quickie: A New Ambassador to Kabul?

NYT reports (January 29, 2009) that “the Obama administration has picked Lt. Gen. Karl W. Eikenberry, a former top military commander in Afghanistan, to be the next United States ambassador to Kabul.” The administration official spoke anonymously because the appointment had not been made public.

If this pans out, General Eikenberry would only be the fourth non-career ambassador assigned to Kabul since 1935. And this maybe one of the few times when you have a political appointee sent to the trenches instead of being shipped to those “cushy” European posts. He was previously Commander of the Combined Forces Command in Afghanistan, was the U.S. Security Coordinator and Chief of the Office of Military Cooperation in Kabul and had been the Defense Attaché at the United States Embassy in Beijing, China. And there's more. Click here to read his November 2008 bio in the NATO Parliamentary Assembly. Impressive.