Blake Hounshell: Did Holbrooke oppose the Afghan war?
[Blake Hounshell is managing editor at Foreign Policy.]
The last words of Richard C. Holbrooke, a lion of U.S. diplomacy, were "You've got to stop this war in Afghanistan" -- 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), he remained officially upbeat about what he was doing, touting U.S. aid efforts in Pakistan, highlighting agricultural programs in Afghanistan, and trying valiantly 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...
Read entire article at Foreign Policy
The last words of Richard C. Holbrooke, a lion of U.S. diplomacy, were "You've got to stop this war in Afghanistan" -- 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), he remained officially upbeat about what he was doing, touting U.S. aid efforts in Pakistan, highlighting agricultural programs in Afghanistan, and trying valiantly 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...