It was a telephone call three days ago from Hillary Clinton that tipped the scales. The US Secretary of State called President Karzai to reassure him of America’s support if he agreed to a run-off. After two months of intense talks between Washington and Kabul, the Afghan leader finally relented.
The day after the August election, Richard Holbrooke, Mr Obama’s special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, had a heated conversation with Mr Karzai, in which he urged him to agree to a second-round vote.
Since then Mr Holbrooke has barely been seen. Officials insist that he has been involved behind the scenes but there is little doubt that, given the delicacy of the negotiations, Mr Holbrooke’s role was reduced. Mrs Clinton, meanwhile, took on a far more active part, as did John Kerry, who is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Mr Kerry extended a visit to Kabul to negotiate the final run-off deal.
Of course the media is not reporting this...........nothing but Kerry, and Obama. What I don't trust, is the dems getting involved, such as James Carvelle acting as Karzai's campaign manager. I don't like it when they put their sticky fingers into the mess.
Right, Obama and the rest of the WH were getting absolutely nowhere with Karzai until Hillary intervened, and she'll get no credit whatsoever for her help by the MSM. I wish someone would ask her what to do about the situation in Afghanistan, I'd be very curious in her answer.
The interview is almost a week old. At that time, the run-off election was a possibility, but this was before anyone knew for sure what was going to happen.
Here are some Hillary quotes:
But I also think that the decision that the President has to make is looking at how we can have a different and more effective relationship with the Afghan Government, whoever is the final victor, but not only with the government in Kabul, but with governors throughout the country with what they call sub-national, regional, local leaders. And there has been a lot of thought given as to how we would do that.
One was you’ve got to look at Afghanistan and Pakistan together. Now, that may sound self-evident, but that wasn’t what was being done previously. And you have to have a much greater integration of the civilian and the military efforts. And the President said at that time, okay, we’re going to send these additional troops. Afghanistan has been under-resourced from the beginning. I have said that since 2003 when I first went to Afghanistan and an American soldier met me by saying welcome to the forgotten front lines in the war against terrorism.
And I took that very personally because having been a senator from New York, that is where the attack against us was planned. The attention was shifted to Iraq; everybody knows that. We’ve never had the kind of military or civilian commitment that our mission had been really needing. So the President is doing what he said he would do, and we’re going to proceed on his timetable.
Well, I’m very impressed with the commitment that the Pakistani Government – both the civilian leadership and the military – have made. When I said what I said some months ago, there was not the full commitment of going after those who were threatening territory and authority inside Pakistan. There is now. And I think the military in Pakistan has proven its effectiveness in going into Swat.
From what I read in the paper, they’re very much focused on also going into the heartland of where the Pakistani Taliban and al-Qaida are located and where these plots and these attacks are planned and directed. So I think that they understand that there is a direct threat to them, which they are addressing, which I think is all to the good.