Great article about how Kerry can finish what Holbrooke started in Af-Pak

[beachmom]

From Buzzfeed of all places:

http://www.buzzfeed.com/rosiegray/holbrooke-allies-look-hopefully-to-john-kerry

Senator John Kerry will arrive in Foggy Bottom later this winter with a particular challenge: Carving out an agenda of his own, something to own apart from the simple administration of the State Department, and something beyond merely implementing Barack Obama’s will.
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People close to Kerry’s late friend and rival for pre-eminence in American foreign policy, Richard Holbrooke, have a suggestion: The mantle of Afghan peacemaking that Holbrooke let slip when he died suddenly on the job in December of 2010. Though the two men are different in personality, both are fundamentally deal-makers, and AfPak, as it’s called, is one of the great deals of the era. Holbrooke’s dream was a negotiated peace that drew in India, Pakistan, the Taliban, and Hamid Karzai’s Afghan government, tamped down militancy, and brought stability. Kerry, many of the people closest to Holbrooke say, could deliver it.

Holbrooke and Kerry were “kindred spirits,” Holbrooke’s widow, the writer Kati Marton, told BuzzFeed. The diplomat “did his utmost to get Senator Kerry involved in the Mission Impossible that was his job in the Obama administration, and he and Kerry worked very closely, very collaboratively and spent a great deal of time on the telephone when Richard was in the region in Pakistan and Afghanistan,” she said.

[karynnj]

1. That is a very interesting article

Here is a link to the last hearing that Holbrooke had with Kerry. It was on Afghanistan. Hearing that Kerry and Holbrooke were working together is not surprising. There is a part where they are speaking of how the solution might be impossible without resolving the broader regional problem - including India/Pakistan.

http://www.foreign.senate.gov/hearings/afghanistan-governance-and-the-civilian-strategy

It would be amazing if anyone, American or other, could negotiate a framework to help that area. It does seem that Kerry is respected by both India and Pakistan, so he might be the most likely to succeed - though I would guess that, like the Middle east, peace may be elusive.

[wisteria]

2. Thank you for posting, very interesting read. n/t