Hey, Richard Holbrooke! You’ve been a diplomat since 1962, you’ve been Ambassador to the UN, you negotiated the Dayton Accords that ended the war in Bosnia, you’ve been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize seven—count ‘em, seven—times—and right now you’re President Obama’s special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, whose Bureau of Tourism is, as I understand it, about to copyright the slogan “Birthplace of the End of the World.’’ How will you spend a rare Sunday night off? Why, by talking foreign policy to journalist James Traub (pictured, left) and a couple hundred policy wonks at one of The New York Times ‘ “Sunday with the Magazine’’ events, of course. (And really, the crowd wasn’t completely wonkish. The terrific Cherry Jones 
and her amazing cheekbones was in the crowd, although if you were playing the president of the United States on the Fox series 24, wouldn’t you have insisted on a private briefing about the Pakistan crisis?)
To his credit, Traub tried to get Holbrooke to commit some news, but the wily ambassador avoided it, although anybody with any aptitude in reading between the lines came away with a bit of insight into what the administration is thinking. Or what Holbrooke wants us to think the administration is thinking. Holbrooke pooh-poohed the significance of an article in Saturday’s Times that reported that in the face of a weak performance by Pakistan president Asif Ali Zardari, US officials were courting the opposition leader Nawaz Sharif. No no no no, said Holbrooke. We’re talking to him, not courting or wooing, and in fact. Zardari knows all about it and not only doesn’t he object, but his party and Sharif’s party just formed a coalition in the Punjab.
Well, says Traub, you couldn’t blame people for thinking that wooing was going on, because there has been all this talk that Zardari is weak and unprepared and less upset about the Taliban’s invasion of his country than, say, we are. “I’m not going to join choruses that get into internal politics,’’ replied Holbrooke. “Internal politics is important, but I won’t comment. Let me just say that strengthening Pakistan is in the interests our national security.’’ As it turns out, the real problem is that Pakistan has deployed only 120,000 troops in the western part of the country, hardly enough for such an enormous area. Somebody has to convince the army to change its 60-odd year doctrine of massing troops in the east to face India over Kashmir, and send more of those fellows to the west , where the active invaders actually are. Zardari has little influence over that issue.
Having cleared that up, Traub asked Holbrooke about the long-term efficacy of the US firing missiles form Predator drones into Pakistan, which efficiently obliterate Al Qaeda and Taliban operatives, but sure do seem to piss off Pakistanis. “No comment,’’ replied Holbrooke, who then commented that “There are people in West Pakistan who are regularly broadcasting that their goal is to be martyrs in the effort to kill Americans. In those circumstances, we’ll do whatever we can to pressure those people.’’ Gotcha–nudge nudge, wink wink.