It was a sentiment with specific piquancy given the failure of Afghan forces to stave off the collapse of their nation ultimately, and given the hundreds of Afghans who’ve struggled mightily to get their guarantees of passage to america fulfilled after serving to coalition forces over time.
Gone have been the Afghan musicians who had animated so many dinners on the embassy earlier than, much less due to constraints on budgets than due to these on Ms. Raz’s emotional reserves.
“I can’t try this,” she mentioned, recalling a fund-raising occasion not lengthy after the Afghan authorities fell in August, throughout which a standard band performed the nationwide anthem. “It was means too emotional,” Ms. Raz mentioned. “I used to be crying so loud, I needed to go upstairs to my workplace to relax.”
Ms. Raz was 16 years outdated when American forces invaded Afghanistan after the assaults of Sept. 11. Their arrival heralded a brand new future for her and different Afghan ladies and ladies, and he or she rapidly enrolled in highschool. She later attended each Simmons School (now known as Simmons College) and the Fletcher College at Tufts College in america on scholarship.
In 2013, she returned to Afghanistan to serve in senior authorities roles. In 2018, she turned Afghanistan’s first feminine ambassador to the United Nations, and, in July, she was appointed ambassador to america and moved right here together with her two daughters, 4 and a pair of. “I used to be simply settling myself,” she mentioned, “then the curler coaster began with the whole lot.”
The collapse of Afghanistan started on Aug. 6, with the autumn of a western provincial capital to Taliban powers. By Aug. 15, the group’s fighters had seized Kabul, as People started a chaotic and, at instances, lethal evacuation of tens of hundreds of individuals.
Ms. Raz spent her brief official tenure urgent the Biden administration to intervene extra forcefully to assist ladies left behind. Her future is unclear — will she by some means stay ambassador, or, extra possible, discover a technique to change her immigration standing to work right here?
