Afghan Journal

from Tales from the Trail:

AfPak — It’s his baby now

On a day when the most powerful people in Washington were discussing Afghanistan and Pakistan, there was one man who might be excused for looking a little shell-shocked.

Frank Ruggiero, who stepped in as acting Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan (SRAP) following the sudden death of his boss Richard Holbrooke on Monday, had little time to prepare for his first big outing as President Barack Obama's  pointman for the biggest foreign policy headache facing the administration.

Ruggiero spoke to the press after Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defense Secretary Robert Gates formally unveiled  their official review of the year-old Afghan strategy, which said enough progress was being made to begin withdrawing U.S. troops in July despite fragile and uneven gains against the Taliban insurgents.

Clinton -- accompanied by virtually Holbrooke's entire office -- joined Ruggiero at the press conference in an orchestrated display of continuity and solidarity.

"I have complete confidence in this SRAP team," Clinton said, adding that Ruggiero had hit the ground running  as he took over the duties of the office.

Ruggiero certainly brings a different style to the job than Holbrooke, whose outsized personality and unbridled enthusiasms had made him for decades one of the United States' most outspoken and recognizable diplomats.

WikiLeaks : Talks with the Taliban a non-starter

Afghan President Hamid Karzai may be pushing for talks with the Taliban in public as the only way to end the nine-year war, but in private he is as determined as the United States in opposing any place for top Taliban leaders  in a future government , the latest set of WikiLeaks documents show.  Those repeated calls for talks  are more aimed at sowing dissensions in the insurgent group than  any serious attempt for a negotiated settlement of the war. Indeed as The Guardian reports on the leaked comments on its website, so far as Karzai and the Obama administration are concerned, the only option open to the Taliban is surrender.

Which pretty much is a deal-maker, given that the Taliban having fought the world’s most advanced military formation to a virtual stalemate, have shown few signs of a compromise, much less  surrender.

“We have no illusion that Mullah Omar could ever join the government,” General David Petraeus, the top US commander in Afghanistan, is quoted as saying in a cable to Washington on 20 January 2009.  The general made the remarks during a conversation with Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev who said he was concerned by Karzai’s bid to involve the Taliban in a post-war settlement.  Petraeus says Karzai’s position is more nuanced than that, and that the Afghan leader ‘s goal was to break up the Taliban, and reconcile some.

A year later another cable makes clear that the United States is remains fundamentally opposed to any deal with the Taliban. “There will be no power-sharing with elements of the Taliban,” Richard Holbrooke, Obama’s special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan tells Indian Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao citing the Taliban’s “unpalatable social programmes”and links with Al Qaeda.

Holbrooke said reconciliation should not be confused with reintegration of Taliban foot soldiers.  The reintegration programme is not a political negotiation designed to give Taliban elements a share of power, he said. The United States could not support any such deal.

In any case, he said, the Taliban themselves have shown no willingness to engage in talks.

from Tales from the Trail:

Holbrooke: No “dysfunction” on U.S. Afghan Team

 Barack Obama's team running the Afghan war has its issues -- but is it dysfunctional? No, sir, according to Richard Holbrooke.

" I have worked in every Democratic administration since the Kennedy administration, and I know dysfunctionality when I see it," Holbrooke, the administration's special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, told the PBS NewsHour program.

" There are always personal differences and ambitions, but this is just not true. It's not a dysfunctional relationship."

Holbrooke's interview with anchor Gwen Ifill came after a rough couple of weeks for Washington's Afghan policy planners. Obama sacked his top commander in the region, General Stanley McChrystal, after the bombshell Rolling Stone article which included disparaging comments from McChrystal's team about civilian directors of the war effort -- Holbrooke included.  And McChrystal's replacement, General David Petraeus, took over with a warning that there would be no swift turnaround after nine years of war.

Holbrooke said he was appalled by the McChrystal fiasco, but didn't take it personally. He also said he wasn't holding any grudges against the general, who "went out of his way" to offer a personal apology.  "In fact, he woke me in the middle of the night to apologize," Holbrooke said.

As for Petraeus, Holbrooke had only good things to say, calling him one of the most outstanding military officers the United States had ever produced.

"And I have known them all back to General Westmoreland in Vietnam. So, I'm very pleased with where we are," Holbrooke said.

from Tales from the Trail:

Holbrooke hits the airwaves in new push

When President Barack Obama snuck into Afghanistan unannounced last month, a notable omission on Air Force One was his special representative for the region, veteran diplomat Richard Holbrooke.

Leaving out the Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan on Obama's very first trip to Kabul as president raised a few eyebrows.

Was Holbrooke's star fading? Were frictions between his office at the State Department and the White House coming to a head? Would tensions with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who has made a string of anti-Western comments over recent weeks, cause further problems for the Obama administration as it seeks to turn around the 8-year war?

But several U.S. officials say it is premature to write off Holbrooke's fortunes.

In fact, the veteran diplomat's profile has been raised in recent days, including his own trip to Kabul last weekend with U.S. General David Petraeus when they met up with Karzai.

Holbrooke appeared on MSNBC on Wednesday, declaring that tensions with the Afghan leader were over and that reports of friction were overblown.

In the coming days, Holbrooke will appear on several other news outlets. On Friday night, Holbrooke is giving an hour-long interview with broadcaster Charlie Rose on whose show he has appeared at least three times over the past year.

from Tales from the Trail:

Is Holbrooke’s “bulldozer” style working?

Dubbed the "bulldozer" for his tough guy tactics in Balkan negotiations, U.S. Ambassador Richard Holbrooke has been making waves in South Asia recently.

U.S. embassies in New Delhi and Kabul have been scrambling over the past week to deal with local fallout from statements made by Washington's special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Statements that often go by unnoticed in Washington are parsed word for word in a region where there are deeply-held suspicions over U.S. intentions.

One such example is Holbrooke's comments at a forum at Harvard last week where he was asked about re-integration efforts with the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Holbrooke made clear -- as he has many times before -- that the United States was not in talks with the Taliban but offered up that almost every family of the southern Pashtun tribes had someone involved with the Taliban.

"There are plenty of indirect contacts between Pashtun on both sides - almost every Pashtun family in the south has family or friends who are involved with the Taliban - it's in the fabric of society,"  said Holbrooke in remarks released by his office.

Almost immediately, that comment went viral in Afghanistan and was seen by many as a slight to President Hamid Karzai, himself a Pashtun.

from Tales from the Trail:

Holbrooke: my relationship with Karzai is good, really

Absolutely they are on good terms...

Richard Holbrooke, special U.S. representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, once again declared his respect for Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

In fact, he feels so strongly about reports that the two don't get along he wrote a letter to The Washington Post.

"I did not, and never have, spoken harshly to Mr. Karzai, " said Holbrooke in the letter to the editor, which was published on Thursday. He was responding to a story earlier this week in the newspaper which said he had spoken harshly to the re-elected Afghan leader.

"As for my relations with President Karzai, whom I have known for more than five years, they remain cordial, correct and respectful," added Holbrooke, who is known for his combative style. He said the same last month when he was pressed about his relations with Karzai.

Holbrooke wrote in the letter that he had been in direct contact with Karzai since he was declared the winner of the fraud-plagued Afghan election this week.

Holbrooke is expected to travel to Afghanistan soon. No date yet. Stay tuned.

from Tales from the Trail:

Protest resignation over Afghan plans puts Obama team on edge

On Monday, the State Department sent out its no. 2 official to tout how it was managing to get U.S. civilians out into the field in Afghanistan, with nearly 1,000 expected to be in place by year-end.

A day later, it was in damage control mode after the resignation of one of its star employees was plastered on the front page of The Washington Post and on the Internet.

In an emotionally-charged four-page letter dated September 10, Matthew Hoh said he was quitting because he had lost confidence in the war effort and whether it was worth the blood spilled there.

Hoh's letter is notable  because he was seen as just the kind of person the State Department wants in Afghanistan. A former Marine and then Department of Defense civilian, he served in Iraq from 2004 to 2007. On a one-year contract with the State Department, he was serving as the senior civilian representative in Afghanistan's Zabul province.

Just as President Barack Obama is reviewing his approach in Afghanistan, Hoh said he had "doubts and reservations" not only about the current but also future strategy in the eight-year war.

"I fail to see the value or the worth in continued U.S. casualties or expenditures of resources in support of the Afghan government in what is, truly, a 35-year old civil war," said Hoh in his resignation letter to the State Department's human resources director.

In language that must make the State Department cringe, Hoh said the United States was no more than a "supporting actor" in a tragedy and that the U.S. presence had only served to further destabilize the country as well as its neighbor Pakistan.

from Tales from the Trail:

Holbrooke jokes about Kerry’s Karzai eclipse

Power plays are always a tricky business in Washington and sometimes it's better to make a joke out of it. Or not.

Special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, used that tactic on Friday when asked about reports that veteran Senator John Kerry is stealing his limelight.

"I'd like to make a joke and say, 'I'm always happy to be eclipsed by John Kerry.' But then you'll take it seriously and then I'll cause more problems," Holbrooke told reporters.

Kerry was in Kabul earlier this week with a mission to convince incumbent President Hamid Karzai to agree to a run-off election after the flawed first round in August. Apparently Holbrooke was also working the phones as was U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

But it was Kerry who grabbed the headlines, prompting journalists to question whether he was the de facto secretary of state and key player when it came to dealing with Karzai.

While Kerry was prodding Karzai in Kabul, Holbrooke said he was in Washington helping Clinton prepare for meetings with President Barack Obama as he reviews U.S. strategy on Afghanistan. Holbrooke's last visit to Kabul was in August when he met several times with Karzai.  Some of those meetings were said to be heated.

But on Friday, Holbrooke brushed aside talk of strained relations with Karzai, saying they got along just  "fine," he had "respect" for the Afghan leader and looked forward to seeing him soon.