by Siddharth Varadarajan
India needs to guide Richard Holbrooke in his work as envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan and tell him the core issue is no longer Kashmir but the nature of the Pakistani establishment.
If Richard Holbrooke is to deliver on the promise of addressing the “deteriorating situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan,” the veteran American diplomat who has just been named U.S. President Barack H. Obama’s special representative for the two countries will have to resist the temptation of mission creep.
It is an open secret that Mr. Holbrooke’s original brief included India, mainly because Mr. Obama let it be known that he believes the Kashmir issue forms an integral part of the military-strategic puzzle the U.S. is dealing with in Afghanistan and Pakistan. But that was before New Delhi unleashed a silent but strenuous campaign to ensure that the ‘I word’ did not figure in any official announcement of the special envoy’s mandate. India told the outgoing Bush administration through Richard Boucher and David Mulford and sent strong signals to the Obama people directly as well as through key business interest and lobbying groups that any appointment which smacked of linkage with Kashmir would be seen as an unfriendly act.
In the event, the Indian government has had its way on this point. An envoy with the words ‘Kashmir’ in his designation would probably not even get a visa to enter the country and would end up poisoning the bilateral relationship in every sphere. India hands in the Beltway know this only too well. No administration would like to sabotage a strategic partnership that has been so assiduously built over a decade-and-a-half, especially when the long-awaited military payoffs are believed to be just round the corner.
At the same time, New Delhi would do well to remember that Mr. Obama’s special representative revels in the image of being a troubleshooter. For his efforts in the Balkans, Mr. Holbrooke has been nominated seven times for the Nobel Peace Prize. The temptation of getting an eighth nomination by trying to “solve Kashmir” would be too great for a man of his ambition. Indeed, his remarks at the State Department last Thursday, just after being named to the job by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, make it clear that Mr. Holbrooke does not see his work as confined to the Durand Line. “In Pakistan,” he said, “the situation is infinitely complex and I don’t think I would advance our goals if I tried to discuss it today … But I will say that in putting Afghanistan and Pakistan together under one envoy, we should underscore that we fully respect the fact that Pakistan has its own history, its own traditions, and it is far more than the turbulent, dangerous tribal areas on its western border. And we will respect that as we seek to follow suggestions that have been made by all three of the men and women standing behind me [President Obama, Vice-President Joe Biden and Ms Clinton] in the last few years on having a more comprehensive policy.”
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