Our Man in Afghanistan

Signing up for a second stint as a troubleshooter in the political and military minefields of Afghanistan might seem like a peculiar brand of masochism. But for veteran Spanish diplomat Francesc Vendrell, who departs for Kabul this week as the European Union's special envoy to that country, it is of a piece with the work he has been doing for the past 34 years. Could it be any more challenging than his efforts to broker peace between the warring factions in Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua in the late 1980s and early 1990s? Or any more fraught with difficulty than his...

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