The last words of Richard C. Holbrooke, a lion of U.S. diplomacy, were "You've got to stop this war in Afghanistan"

[Henk Elegeert]

REPLY TO: D66 at nic.surfnet.nl

 Holbrooke the dove<http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/12/14/holbrooke_the_dove>
Posted By Blake Hounshell <http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/blog/40> Tuesday,
December 14, 2010

The last words of Richard C. Holbrooke, a lion of U.S. diplomacy, were "You've
got to stop this war in
Afghanistan<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/13/AR2010121305198_5.html?hpid=topnews&sid=ST2010121305455>"
-- a sentence worth pondering as the United States heads into a fresh round
of debate over a conflict that has ground on for more than 9 years, steadily
escalating from a sideshow to a nightmare that threatens to consume Barack
Obama's presidency.

What did Holbrooke mean? Did he oppose the war?

Holbrooke, who until last week was running the civilian side of the Afghan
war, had expressed few public doubts about the wisdom of U.S. efforts there.
Despite constant sniping at him in the press (and some unkind words in Bob
Woodward's latest<http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/09/22/woodward_strikes_again>),
he remained officially upbeat about what he was doing, touting U.S. aid
efforts in Pakistan, highlighting agricultural programs in
Afghanistan, andtrying valiantly
<http://www.state.gov/s/special_rep_afghanistan_pakistan/2010/150183.htm>to
broker some sort of modus vivendi between the two South Asian neighbors.

But he clearly had grave doubts about the war. He is quoted in Woodward's
book saying that "If there are 10 possible outcomes in Afghanistan, nine of
them are bad." Through Woodward, he also criticizes the approach urged by
Bruce Riedel, who led the president's first major strategy review in the
spring of 2009. It's worth quoting Woodward at length:

The war -- or the American role in the war -- would not end in a military
victory, but nearly all the focus had been on the military. There had been
little discussion of reconciliation -- how the warring parties could be
brought together diplomatically. That might be far off, but it had to be
planned. How could the Taliban insurgents be lured off the field? Maybe it
was a fantasy. But they had to sincerely try.

The Saudis were already acting as secret intermediaries with elements of the
Taliban, but the White House was not seriously engaging the issue. This was
the only end for the war in Holbrooke's estimation. How could they not at
least consider it?

Holbrooke largely agreed with Biden. He saw the vice president emerging as
the adminisration's George Ball, the deputy secretary of state who had
opposed the Vietnam escalation. But the length of Bidens's presentation
undermined his message, Holbrooke told others.

Like Biden, Holbooke believed that even if the Taliban retook large parts of
Afghanistan, al Qaeda would not come with them. That might be "the single
most important intellectual insight of the year," Holbrooke remarked hours
after the first meeting. Al Qaeda was much safer in Pakistan. Why go back to
Afghanistan, where there were nearly 68,000 U.S. troops and 30,000 from
other NATO countries? And in Afghanistan, the U.S. had all the intelligence
and surveillance capability, plus the capability to dispatch massive ground
forces, not just Special Operations Forces but batallions of regular troops
and the CIA's 3,000-man pursuit teams.

Astonishingly to Holbrooke, that key insight had neither been in Riedel's
report, nor had it been discussed that Sunday morning. Where was the
no-holds-barred debate? The president had told them not to bite their
tongues. Holbrooke had to bite his because he worked for the secretary of
state, who was unsure of what course to recommend. But where were the
others?

In another part of the book, Holbrooke is quoted saying that the strategy
"can't work." Elsewhere, he expresses doubt that the United States can
"defeat" the Taliban, complains about the Afghan police ("the weak link")
and says provocatively that the U.S. presence itself "is the corrupting
force" in Afghanistan. During the fall 2009 strategy review, he told Clinton
privately that he supported sending 20,000 troops, but not the full 40,000
the military had requested. But he also opposed the July 2011 deadline to
begin withdrawing U.S. troops and said flatly at one point, "We're not
leaving," urging that the U.S. presence be put on a more sustainable
long-term footing.

Holbrooke's relations with the military weren't always smooth. When an aide
to Gen. Stanley McChrystal dissed Holbrooke to *Rolling Stone* as "a wounded
animal," he laughed it off, telling
reporters<http://www.state.gov/s/special_rep_afghanistan_pakistan/2010/144537.htm>,
"Worse things have been said about me."

He also had fraught interactions with former national security advisor Jim
Jones, whom he clearly viewed as a lightweight (and who in return tended to
see Holbrooke's ideas as impractical), and with Jones's deputy, Tom Donilon.


But Holbrooke's biggest problem was with Obama, who in Woodward's estimation
"didn't care for" him. The two men just didn't connect. In one painful
anecdote, Holbrooke approaches him and asks to be called "Richard," rather
than "Dick," because his wife preferred the former.

"Later, the president told others that he found the request highly unusual
and even strange," Woodward writes. "Holbrooke was horrified when he learned
that his request -- which he had repeated to no one -- had been circulated
by the president."

Though we'll get the administration's formal assessment later this
week<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/13/AR2010121306799.html?hpid=topnews>,
it's still too early to tell how the new "surge" in Afghanistan is going.
But one has to wonder: If Holbrooke and Obama had gotten along better, or if
Clinton had been less guarded in her own views, would history be playing out
differently?

"

...

Henk Elegeert

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