Ashraf Ghani’s time as leader of Afghanistan seemed doomed to fail from the start, beginning with a hotly disputed election and ending with a helicopter ride out of his Kabul palace as the Taliban took the capital.

The tenure of the professor and “technocrat,” whose family has Washington, D.C., insider and Democratic connections, was plagued by an Afghan rival who refused to admit defeat in back-to-back elections, a United States looking for the exit, a relentless effort by the Taliban to return to power, and a personal background seemingly ill-suited for the job.