Les Gelb, who was Richard Holbrooke’s closest friend, has a lovely and stunning memorial today in The Daily Beast, which includes one very significant piece of news:
From the outset, Holbrooke was hamstrung. He knew that Americans and Afghans both had no chance unless the government in Kabul shaped up. President George W. Bush let President Hamid Karzai do whatever he wanted. So, Holbrooke went to Kabul and blasted Karzai for the corruption, inefficiency, and illegitimacy of his government. That was precisely the right move. Karzai had to understand that Washington was now going to get serious. But Karzai, no fool and no amateur bargainer himself, told Holbrooke’s bosses he wouldn’t talk to the envoy, period. Obama let that injunction stand until fairly recently, and that killed Holbrooke—and the U.S.—with Karzai. Instead, the president should have responded to Karzai’s ploy by picking up the phone and telling the Afghan leader that he would either have to speak to Holbrooke or he’d speak to no one.
Gelb is absolutely right. If you appoint a special representative, you support that special representative. Obama–or his advisors–undercut Holbrooke from the very outset, which crippled our ability to push the Afghan government toward legitimacy and made Holbrooke’s mission near-impossible. I know the President and Holbrooke didn’t get along, for the reasons that Gelb outlines elsewhere in the piece–Dick could be a shameless (and transparent) flatterer and a grandiloquent lecturer (although the lectures usually contained valuable swatches of history and a strategic wisdom that hasn’t been this Administration’s strong point). As Gelb knows better than anyone, Holbrooke could be impossible…but the talent was immense. If Obama wasn’t going to support Holbrooke, he should have fired him on the spot. The stakes were just too high. If the President really didn’t trust Holbrooke, he never should have appointed him.
But Obama’s initial response to Karzai’s protest was amateur hour. It allowed Karzai to treat most every other American who had to deal with him on a regular basis–especially Amabassador Karl Eikenberry and General David Petraeus–in a high-handed, dismissive manner. That has made our work in Afghanistan much harder. I suspect the President knows better now; I certainly hope he does.