A new approach

Obama’s determination to recast the die of the Bush ‘war on terror’ is becoming clear. On the legal front, he has signed executive orders to close the notorious detention camp at Guantanamo Bay within a year, end the CIA’s secret overseas prisons, and have all interrogations comply with the US Army Field Manual which bars coercive methods. “We intend to win this fight. We are going to win it on our own terms,” President Obama said, and he deserves praise for acting so swiftly against some of the ugliest aspects of the Bush legacy. The fight Obama was referring to is against militancy and terrorism which, according to the US president, pose the biggest threat in Afghanistan and along the Pak-Afghan border. Therefore, extrapolating from the orders already given, Pakistan can at least expect the new American president to be more principled, and less blindly jingoistic, in pursuing his policies in the area.Seen in this light, the announcement that Richard Holbrooke will be the Obama administration’s special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan is also a sign that the new administration is determined to start over in the region. Holbrooke’s brief is wide-ranging and, according to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, he will “coordinate across the entire [US] government”, including the Defence Department, USAID, the State Department and the White House. This is unsurprising, given that the US is expected to send 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan as well as restructure and ramp up aid and development projects in Afghanistan and Pakistan.What remains to be seen is what the special envoy will be able to achieve. Holbrooke, a former ambassador to the UN, is acknowledged as one of America’s heavyweight diplomats and wanted to be President Clinton’s secretary of state in the 1990s. He is most well known for his role in brokering the Dayton Peace Accords in 1995 which brought to an end the three-and-a-half-year war in Bosnia. However, as chairman of the Asia Society the special envoy will also bring a deep understanding of this region to the job. Indeed, he has jointly penned the foreword to the recently published report of the Asia Society, ‘Delivering on the promise: Advancing US relations with India.’ The report endorses President Obama’s ‘regional’ approach to Afghanistan, though it seeks to reassure India that the re-hyphenation of US ties with Pakistan and India is not on the cards. In fact, Holbrooke’s job description as envoy for Pakistan and Afghanistan rather than South Asia, as originally envisaged, may have been changed to placate India on precisely the de-hyphenation of ties between India and Pakistan. The challenges facing Mr Holbrooke, therefore, are tough: a discredited and weak Afghan government, a frail civilian government in Pakistan that is not considered an equal partner of the Pakistan Army in foreign policy matters, and a deeply suspicious India. “The fundamental nature of diplomacy … is a bit like jazz — improvisation on a theme,” Mr Holbrooke once told The New York Times. His new job will test his mettle to the fullest.