Pakistan's Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani (R) talks to Richard Holbrooke, U.S. special envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan, in Islamabad February 10, 2009. Holbrooke began meeting Pakistani leaders on Tuesday at the start of a mission to protect Western interests in the region. (Faisal Mahmood/Reuters)From New York Times:
LAHORE, Pakistan — The American special envoy, Richard C. Holbrooke, wound down his whistle-stop tour of Pakistan on Wednesday with a brief visit to the lawless tribal areas, and then dinner with liberal intellectuals at a rooftop restaurant here in Lahore.
He had come to listen, not to lecture, Mr. Holbrooke said. What he heard was a familiar list of requests for more money and arms from Pakistan’s top leadership, as well as a litany of complaints about American airstrikes in Pakistan’s tribal areas using Predator drones.
Mr. Holbrooke’s trip to Pakistan, and his four-day tour of Afghanistan, which is scheduled to begin Thursday, was part of a top-to-bottom review of American policy in the region ordered by President Obama.
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My Comment: Pakistan is slowly imploding, with different factions going their separate ways. Mr. Holbrooke is there to listen .... but what he will listen to will be competing agendas and different goals from Pakistan.
His job is going to a challenge .... one that I will not envy.