Despite its host of special envoys and czars, the Obama administration has, on occasion, seen the need to look outside for assistance in resolving major foreign-policy crises. The latest example is Afghanistan, where Sen. John Kerry reportedly played a key role in brokering yesterday’s announcement by Afghan president Hamid Karzai that he would accept a runoff of Afghanistan’s president election, likely to be held on November 7.
The New York Times reports that last week Secretary Clinton, knowing Senator Kerry was about to travel to Afghanistan, “dispatched” Richard Holbrooke, the administration’s special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, to Kerry’s home to ask for his assistance in convincing Karzai to accept election results showing that he had received less than 50% of the vote during the presidential election in August. Karzai was refusing to accept the results, which would trigger a runoff.
Kerry spent much of his trip to the region working with U.S. ambassador Eikenberry and administration officials to resolve the standoff. His unusual role raises some questions about U.S. policy toward Afghanistan and the capabilities of the administration’s key officials who are supposed to be overseeing U.S. policy toward the region.
The subtext here appears to be that Holbrooke, who reportedly engaged in several shouting matches with Karzai in recent months, has so undermined the U.S. relationship with Karzai that he had to be sidelined. Even if Holbrooke was deemed an unacceptable broker, why not have Secretary Clinton travel to the region to mediate? Just ten days ago, she traveled to Zurich to help broker a last-minute deal to restore diplomatic relations between Turkey and Armenia, an important accomplishment, but the sort of task an assistant secretary of state could have easily handled. In this instance, she instead engaged Karzai by phone.
Clinton’s notable absence on Afghanistan policy has led many experts to express concerns that the caliber of the U.S. civilian team working on Afghanistan does not match that of the likes of Gen. David Petraeus, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, and other military leaders handling this issue. There has been no comprehensive civilian assessment or plan put forward by Ambassador Holbrooke and his army of staffers on the seventh floor at State to accompany General McChrystal’s assessment. U.S. political goals for the country are unclear.
This is a fundamental problem that 20 hours of shuttle diplomacy by John Kerry isn’t going to solve. U.S. strategy in Afghanistan doesn’t really benefit either from the shameless leaking by Kerry’s staff, playing up his role in resolving the crisis. News accounts today were filled with accounts of his long walk with Karzai through the palace grounds amidst the rose bushes hours before Karzai’s press conference. Other reports noted that Kerry discussed with Karzai his own frustrating experience during the 2004 election when he lost Ohio.
It is unclear what Kerry is trying to achieve other than his own self aggrandizement, but David Ignatius hints in an online article on the Washington Post website that it may be more work for the Obama administration, “one wonders, after this stint of marathon diplomacy and hand-holding, how Kerry will find life back in the all-too-familiar Senate chamber.”
It is worth remembering that the administration used Kerry at least once before in a similar role, also breathlessly reported by Ignatius at the time. In March, Kerry dined with Syrian president Bashar Assad in Damascus, with whom he has reportedly developed a relationship of “respect and friendship,” enabling him to “break a logjam” in U.S.-Syrian relations. Now, seven months later, the administration has little to show for its engagement with Syria. Hopefully Senator Kerry’s efforts over the last several days to convince Hamid Karzai to agree to a runoff will yield more success than his time in Damascus in March.
— Jamie M. Fly is executive director of the Foreign Policy Initiative.