The Dispensable Nation: American Foreign Policy in Retreat by Vali Nasr Read Free Book Online

the Taliban business in the first place. Where he could start talks, however, was with a discussion on trade and commerce.
    During a three-way meeting between the United States, Afghanistan, and Pakistan in Washington in 2009, Holbrooke sat through a discussion on trade. He learned that there was a market for Afghan goods in India, but Afghan trucks and produce could not cross Pakistani territory because there was no transit-and-trade agreement between the two countries (in fact there were hardly any treaties between the two countries). The two had started negotiating a trade-and-transit agreement in the 1960s but had let the matter drop and never resumed it. Finishing that deal became something of an obsession for Holbrooke. He spent hours going over every detail in it and tapped his chief economic adviser, a tireless and talented young diplomat named Mary Beth Goodman, to work on the issue.
    Over the next year, he talked trade with the Afghan and Pakistani foreign ministers every chance he got. They were tired of hearing him make the case for a treaty that they thought had no chance of being signed. They were happy to use the idea as happy talk about the future or to point to each other’s malfeasance, but neither foreign minister wasreally eager to roll up his sleeves and negotiate a deal. But then, they had no idea how persuasive and tenacious Holbrooke could be.
    The two foreign ministers by turn brought excuses or came up with myriad reasons it would not work, and would then make outlandish demands. The Afghan foreign minister brought India into the discussion hoping that Pakistan would back out, but Holbrooke found a way around that by asking the Indians to reject the Afghan request. Holbrooke lobbied Karzai and Kayani, and then got Clinton to lean on them as well. Eventually both sides, to their own surprise, said yes. That he got the Pakistan military to give its okay (given that the deal would connect Afghanistan and India economically and would require Pakistan to open its border to India) was a mighty achievement.
    But it was not a treaty until both sides showed up for a signing ceremony. Holbrooke used Clinton’s visit to Islamabad in July 2010 to corner both sides into signing the treaty. Ambassador Eikenberry flew the Afghan finance minister to Islamabad and waited there until after the signing to fly him back (so there would be no excuses citing the alleged difficulty of travel). Holbrooke told Goodman to get the two ministers in the same room: “Don’t let them out before they are done; don’t go in, but stay right outside in case they need technical help.” It worked. Afghanistan and Pakistan signed the first treaty between the two countries in decades (in fact, no one could remember when they had last inked one together). It was a giant step in creating trust and momentum to tackle the bigger border issues.
    Now, on any day of the week, you can go to the Wagah, the border crossing between Pakistan and India that sits a short distance from the center of the Pakistani city of Lahore, and you will see a mile-long line of trucks loaded with fruit and other produce, both fresh and dried. Much of this cargo waiting to cross into India comes from Afghanistan. It is legitimate, productive trade, and Holbrooke made it possible.
    After Holbrooke died the State Department promoted the idea of a New Silk Road to give Afghanistan an economic anchor after American troops left. It conceives of Afghanistan as a trading hub for the region. 8 The Transit Trade Agreement made this idea possible, and if it ever comes to fruition it will have to be based on what Holbrooke and Goodman negotiated.
    A little over a year after Holbrooke died, in April 2012 India and Pakistan opened their border to trade. The Transit Trade Agreement had given both India and Pakistan reason to expand beyond the Afghan trade connecting the two countries. Pakistan now saw it was possible to trade with antagonistic neighbors. Pakistan would grant