TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

A 'Larger Than Life' Problem-Solver

ADVERTISEMENT

The New York Times

Published: February 16, 2009

Stashed in a drawer in his Manhattan apartment between snapshots of family vacations, a photograph shows Richard C. Holbrooke on a private visit to Afghanistan in 2006. He is mugging atop an abandoned Russian tank, flashing a sardonic V-for-victory sign and his best Nixon-style grin. The pose is a little like Holbrooke himself: looming, theatrical, passionate, indignant.

Three years later, he has inherited responsibility for the terrain he surveyed from that tank. As President Barack Obama's special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Holbrooke will help reformulate and carry out U.S. policy in what many call the most problematic region on earth.

"You have a problem that is larger than life," said Christopher R. Hill, a longtime colleague. "To deal with it you need someone who's larger than life."

Few other diplomats can boast of the accomplishments of Holbrooke, 67, who negotiated the Dayton peace accords to end the war in Bosnia.

But as he landed in Pakistan last week, back on duty after eight years of a Republican administration, he is still an outsider in the Obama circle, having only recently developed a relationship with the new president. His longtime foreign-policy pupil, Hillary Rodham Clinton, has the secretary of state job he has always wanted. And he has taken on a task so difficult that merely averting disaster may be the only triumph.

Obama and Clinton chose Holbrooke because of his ability to twist arms as well as hold hands, work closely with the military and improvise inventive solutions to what others write off as unsolvable problems.

For now, Holbrooke is both raising expectations and lowering them. He is talking about Afpak - Washington shorthand for his assignment - as his last and toughest mission. But along with the rest of Obama's foreign-policy staff, he is also trying to redefine success, shifting away from former President George W. Bush's grand, transformative goals and toward something more achievable.

His 10-day tour of the region is a chance to vacuum up as much information as possible, he said.

There is a reason for this wide-ranging tour: Because official Afghan and Pakistani leaders are seen as weak, Holbrooke may have to seek alternative partners, a task to which he is naturally suited, according to Wesley Clark, the retired Army general.

"Richard Holbrooke sees power the way an artist sees color," Clark said.

Thanks to Holbrooke's negotiating skills, he won himself an unusual title: representative rather than envoy, meaning that his responsibilities extend beyond the State Department and that he will report to the president, but through Clinton. It is a bit of Washingtonese whose precise meaning will become clear with time.

His first task is to help lead a total review of American policy in the region, an assignment on which Obama has imposed a 60-day deadline. Another is to learn as much about Pakistan as Holbrooke has about Afghanistan; he is hiring staff members to fill some of the gaps in his knowledge, colleagues said.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT