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Meet Bernd Mützelburg. There is a 100% chance you’ve never heard of him. But today, Germany’s Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier appointed him to be special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Richard Holbrooke, the United States’ envoy for that region, apparently asked the allies to name contact persons for him at last week security conference in Munich. Of course, the Obama administration’s wish is Steinmeier’s command so he wasted no time.

Mützelburg is a career diplomat, having joined the foreign service in 1972, and by all indications aptly qualified for the job. For the last two years, he’s been Germany’s ambassador to India. He previously served as a senior adviser for foreign affairs to former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder. It is a good sign that Germany apparently wants to be more involved in the region.

But despite his impressive credentials, Mützelburg will probably run into difficulties. It seems unlikely that he will have a direct line to the highest levels of government in Pakistan and Afghanistan and a personal reception by the respective presidents, as Holbrooke enjoyed, is hard to imagine.

Plus there’s internal German politics to consider. Steinmeier made the decision to appoint Mützelburg, who was due to retire from the foreign service, without consulting anyone outside his inner circle, including Chancellor Angela Merkel. Steinmeier could very well leave his current post after the September election, either by moving up, as he aspires, to Chancellor (highly unlikely) or by getting ousted from government altogether (moderate probability). Then the Foreign Office would likely be controlled by either the Greens or the Free Democrats.

Officials at the chancellery already told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung that while they don’t question Mützelburg’s qualifications, he’s a “noted Social Democrat”, leaving his standing after the election in doubt. Mützelburg’s service might end up as a rather short footnote.