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Richard Holbrooke on the fight against the Taliban

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Pakistan’s northwest has been plagued for years by Islamist extremist violence fueled by anger over the war in Afghanistan and Islamabad’s alliance with Washington. A Pakistani military offensive that began in October against the Pakistani Taliban spurred attacks that killed more than 600 people. Marco Werman talks with Washington’s special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, about US policy in the region.

The World's Marco Werman (left) with Ambassador Holbrooke (Photo: Mike Wilkins)

• BBC coverage: Taliban conflict
• On The World: Is the Afghan army ready for prime time?

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MARCO WERMAN:  Richard Holbrooke is the Special U.S. Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan.  His job is to manage the diplomatic side of the Afghan war and the spillover in Pakistan.  Obviously a big focus is countering the Taliban insurgency on either side of that border.  Holbrooke’s experience with counter-insurgency goes back to Viet Nam.  He spent several years there working for the State Department and according to a profile in the New Yorker magazine, when he got his current job; he commented it’s worse than the Nam.  Richard Holbrooke was at Harvard University last night.  I asked him if he still thought that the conflict in Afghanistan and Pakistan is worse than Viet Nam.

RICHARD HOLBROOKE:  It’s more difficult and it’s more consequential than Viet Nam because, first of all the Viet Kong and the North Vietnamese never posed a direct threat to the American homeland.  Taliban and Al Qaeda do.  And secondly, it’s even further from our logistical supply lines.  The culture is even more remote.  Xenophobia is even greater.  And we inherited a real mess.  But I don’t want to minimize Viet Nam, it did not end well, but I think this one is more difficult.  On the other hand, I think we know more about what we’re trying to do.

WERMAN: And things are slowly shaping up.  We’ve heard of a wave of arrests of senior Taliban figures in Pakistan in recent weeks.  Many observers think that Pakistani cooperation has been limited in the past.  Do you think these new arrests represent a real shift by Pakistan in trying to tackle the problem of Afghan Taliban?

HOLBROOKE: I’m not ready to say that we’ve turned a corner, there’s light at the end of the tunnel.  All I can say is that the arrest of these people like Mullah Baradar is a good thing because it is putting enormous pressure on the Taliban.  But I don’t know if it constitutes a C change in policy or just a series of opportunistic events.

WERMAN: It’s been said that they way forward in Afghanistan is to talk, actually talk with the Taliban.  Are you talking to the Taliban directly or indirectly right now?

HOLBROOKE: We’re not talking to the Taliban.  Plenty of other people are.  Every Pashtun in the south and Afghanistan probably has friends, contacts and relatives in the Taliban, but the United States is not in direct contact with the Taliban.

WERMAN: U.S. Marine General Lawrence Nicholson gave a briefing on the operation in Marjah on Thursday saying the operation has reached a turning point.  He says there’s been no direct contact with the enemy for a week.  But he said the population is actually more skeptical than he anticipated.  Do you think these Afghans in these rural areas can be persuaded to support the government in Kabul and the international forces in Afghanistan?

HOLBROOKE: If they are protected from the Taliban and if they get services and if corruption is held to a minimum, the answer is yes.  Those are three important ifs, however.

WERMAN: They’re very big ifs.

HOLBROOKE: Big ifs, but that’s what our job is.

WERMAN: How do you pull that off?

HOLBROOKE: To pull that off you need to follow the troops into an area like Marjah with government services and economic aid.  We can provide the aid and we can help them, but the services in the end have to be provided by the Afghan district officials themselves.  Historically that’s been hard to do, but that’s what we’re working on.

WERMAN: How much faith do you have in the Afghan Army and Police to be partners in this operation?

HOLBROOKE: The Police are the weak link in this process.  They’re not very well trained.  There is a high illiteracy rate.  There’s high drug use.  There’s high attrition.  And yet without a good Police force this project is unlikely to succeed.  So that is the focus of our attention.  I spend more time on the Police than any other single issue.

WERMAN: How confident are you that the Afghan Army and Police can take over the job when the reduction is slated to begin in July of 2011?

HOLBROOKE: I’m not going to predict what will and won’t happen.  I can only say that it is the critical variable in our policy and it will, more than any other factor, there are other factors, but more than any other factor, it will help determine the pace and scope of the withdrawals that start in July 2011.

WERMAN: Now in Viet Nam you appreciate early on that the hollowness of the South Vietnamese government was a serious liability to the counter-insurgency effort.  Afghanistan obviously a very different war, as you’ve already illustrated.  But surely success there must equally depend on the credibility of our partner in Kabul.  What is your estimate of the credibility of Hamid Karzai right now?

HOLBROOKE: Everyone recognizes that the government is not providing sufficient services, that there’s too much corruption, President Karzai himself agrees with that.  And we have to work at that.

WERMAN: I guess one could say that the most recent example of corruption was Mr. Karzai’s decree that the Electoral Complaints Commission will come under his oversight and he will appoint the members.  How do you respond to that?

HOLBROOKE: It seems to me that with all these foreign troops and the commitment of foreign countries in Afghanistan, that the international community has a legitimate right to ask the Afghan government to make sure that they create representative government.  The issues you raise are points of legitimate concern.

WERMAN: A lot of the international community was angered by that move.  In fact The Economist magazine called it astonishing chutzpa.  Were you angered by it?

HOLBROOKE: I don’t think that’s an Afghan word, chutzpa.

WERMAN: No I don’t think so either.  Were you angered by it?  By the decree by President Karzai?

HOLBROOKE: I think I’ve been at this too long to get angry.  But as I said a moment ago, it’s a point of legitimate concern for us.  This is an issue that’s under intense discussion right now.

WERMAN: At the White House with you and Secretary of State Clinton?

HOLBROOKE: No, in Kabul.  In Kabul.  No, there’s no disagreement within the U.S. government on this.

WERMAN: Returning finally Ambassador Holbrooke to a quote from last year’s profile of you in the New Yorker.  You said that regarding your time, just out of college in Viet Nam.  “A terrible truth that people do not like to admit was that the war was fun for young men at least.  It was fun if they were civilians or journalists.”  You also began by telling us that Afghanistan is a much tougher road to hoe than Viet Nam.  So tell us what was the most recent chapter for you that was fun, perhaps.  If not fun, then invigorating and satisfying in its results.

HOLBROOKE: When I said fun, I was talking about a very different kind of war where you could go out to the provinces during the day.  If you were luck avoid combat.  Come back into Saigon, have a wonderful dinner on the side of the river, have a drink on the verandah of the Continental Hotel and think of Graham Greene novels.  It was a different kind of war.  Afghanistan is much more dangerous for the individuals involved.  Not that Viet Nam wasn’t dangerous, but you can’t do that.  People travel around in armored cars.  Terrorists strike.  Suicide bombers are a common phenomenon and it has a different quality.

WERMAN: Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, thank you so much.

HOLBROOKE: You’re welcome.  Pleasure to be with you.

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