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Holbrooke to Islamabad?
HOLBROOKE TO ISLAMABAD?....Spencer Ackerman thinks Barack Obama ought to ask Richard Holbrooke to be his ambassador to Iraq:
Is there any U.S. diplomat more qualified than Holbrooke — a former U.N. ambassador, among other things — to preside over and cajole the creation of a national sectarian political compact in Iraq? Unlike anyone else in the U.S. foreign policy community, Holbrooke actually did this before, in the middle of a Balkan shooting war, and he's given a lot of thought to the ways in which his Balkan experience is relevant to Iraq. If we're to take seriously the idea that the U.S. needs energetic diplomatic action to broker a political settlement in Iraq to accompany withdrawal, there isn't really anyone else for the job.
Sure, but here's another thought. If he's willing to stay on, why not keep Ryan Crocker in the job and ask Holbrooke to go to Pakistan? Crocker gets pretty good marks from everyone and he already knows the lay of the land in Baghdad, while Pakistan is really ground zero these days for a hard ass diplomat who can figure out a way to get people who hate each other's guts to somehow work together. For my money, it's the most important diplomatic post in the world right now.
Crocker represented and continues to represent the Bush administration. He's supported the war effort from start to finish. He should be replaced.
I'm really exasperated with this Holbroke as 'hard ass diplomat'. 'Hard ass' doesn't mean smart, and take it from someone who had seen Holbrooke in action from the front row seats in the Balkans - he came to just mop things arround. He's getting too much credit for doing what was always going to be done, in effect rewarding both Serbia and Croatia for butchering Bosnia. Not to mention that he'd never gotten arround to discussing problems of Kosovo, leaving it to erupt in blody clashes post 1999. He's not a good news, any way you look at it.
The U.S. already has the best career ambassador in the business serving in Pakistan - Anne Patterson. Tough, experienced, tested. Why change her out for a politico?
Joe Wilson, not that he would take the position.
Which person as ambassador would be able get the ISI to quit its mischief in Afghanistan and India?