In this episode of Battlegrounds, H.R. McMaster and Adela Raz discuss the humanitarian catastrophe and systemic human rights abuses under Taliban rule, the lessons and consequences of the collapse of the Afghanistan Republic, and the future of Afghanistan and its diaspora.

Join former Ambassador of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan to the United States, Adela Raz, and Hoover Senior Fellow H.R. McMaster as they reflect on the geostrategic consequences of the 2021 collapse of Afghanistan. Ambassador Raz shares her insights on the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, the humanitarian catastrophe and systemic human rights abuses currently facing the country, the Taliban’s repressive control over women, and her hope for the future of Afghanistan and its diaspora.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Adela Raz served as the Ambassador of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan to the United States from July 2021 to February 2022. Ambassador Raz was first woman to hold the post of Deputy Chief of Staff for an Afghan president's administrative office. She served in this post both in President Hamid Karzai's Administration and in President Ashraf Ghani’s. She was the Deputy Minister for Economic Cooperation at Afghanistan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs from 2016 to 2018. From 2018 to July of 2021, Raz served as Afghanistan’s first female Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nations, where she was the Vice President of the 75th session of the General Assembly. Since 2022, Raz has served as the director of the Afghanistan Policy Lab at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs. Ambassador Raz has a Master's degree in Law and Diplomacy from the Fletcher School at Tufts University.

H.R. McMaster is the Fouad and Michelle Ajami Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He is also the Bernard and Susan Liautaud Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute and lecturer at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business. He was the 25th assistant to the president for National Security Affairs. Upon graduation from the United States Military Academy in 1984, McMaster served as a commissioned officer in the United States Army for thirty-four years before retiring as a Lieutenant General in June 2018.