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Analysis: New U.S. envoy wades into Afghanistan, Pakistan tangle

16 February 2011 02:01 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. The Obama administration’s new Afghanistan and Pakistan envoy will face a daunting task as he seeks to advance U.S. policy in a region where the United States is battling a bloody insurgency in one country and struggling to hold together a battered alliance in another, APA reports quoting Reuters.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is expected to announce later this week her choice of retired diplomat Marc Grossman as replacement for Richard Holbrooke, the larger-than-life envoy who died after an aorta tear last year.
Grossman, who was U.S. ambassador to Turkey in the 1990s and worked at the U.S. embassy in Pakistan in the 1970s, becomes President Barack Obama’s special representative to the region as Washington looks to curtail its military role in Afghanistan despite violence that is at its highest level since 2001.
In July, President Barack Obama will begin withdrawing some of the U.S. force of nearly 100,000 from Afghanistan, a first step toward ending a decade of expensive war that has little support remaining in the West.
Grossman will also seek to repair ties with Pakistan, now strained almost to a breaking point over a U.S. consulate worker locked in a Lahore jail for killing two Pakistanis, and to coax a fragile coalition government in Islamabad to stamp out militants hiding out along its border with Afghanistan.
Both are tall orders that defied even Holbrooke, one of the most heavyweight U.S. diplomats of his generation.
Michael O’Hanlon, a foreign policy expert at the Brookings Institution in Washington, said Grossman, who became a consultant after retiring from a senior State Department job in 2005, was "the right kind of person for the job -- experienced, reasonably well known, very competent".
A former senior U.S. diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Grossman was unlikely to stray from the official line, but said he was very bright and a "safe pair of hands".
CROWDED FIELD
Grossman walks into a crowded, uneasy diplomatic field in Kabul, where U.S. Ambassador Karl Eikenberry and General David Petraeus, the politically minded commander of NATO forces, vie for influence and where American officials are increasingly estranged from President Hamid Karzai.
"Afghanistan is keen to work closely with the new Afghanistan-Pakistan envoy in better coordination and understanding," said Siamak Herawi, a spokesman for Karzai, whose relationship with Holbrooke was famously cool.
"Afghanistan expects the new envoy to heed our people’s views and opinion," Herawi said.
Karzai has drifted farther from the United States as he faces mounting criticism over rampant corruption and he becomes increasingly vocal about the West’s missteps in Afghanistan.
Thomas Ruttig, co-director of the Afghan Analysts Network, said Grossman may be in a position to relaunch the Karzai relationship without the baggage of the past.
"But it is not only about this relationship. It is also about the U.S. strategy for Afghanistan and the balance of influence ... the U.S. military on one side and U.S. diplomacy on the other side," he said. "This needs to be re-balanced."
Grossman’s appointment comes as Washington and Islamabad struggle through their worst diplomatic spat in recent history.
U.S. officials are demanding Pakistan release Raymond Davis, jailed last month for shooting two Pakistanis, on grounds the U.S. consular employee is shielded by diplomatic immunity.
But the government of President Asif Ali Zardari, already deeply unpopular and fearful of a backlash from Pakistanis enraged by the shooting, has so far deflected American pressure to intervene and said the matter must be decided in local courts.
Talat Masood, a retired Pakistani general and columnist, said high-level diplomacy might help ease tension over Davis’ fate. "The situation has become too aggressive on both sides," he said.
The Obama administration dispatched influential Senator John Kerry to Pakistan on Tuesday, reflecting U.S. fears about any precedent for trial of American officials in foreign courts.
"I think it will be very difficult to pull together the cracks this has exposed in the U.S.-Pakistan alliance (and for) the Americans to ask for anything else while the case is being resolved," said Ahmed Rashid, an author and political analyst.
Even if the Davis crisis can be put to rest, Grossman will face major challenges in a nation rife with anti-Americanism, where years of U.S. pressure, including from Holbrooke, for more action against Taliban and other militants launching attacks against U.S. troops in Afghanistan have yielded few results.
Even with billions of dollars in U.S. aid strengthening his case, and even if he can win over skeptical Pakistani officials, Pakistan is mindful of the upcoming U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and may be unlikely to bend to U.S. demands.
History suggests Pakistan has reason to worry. Following the 1989 Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, Washington was seen as walking away from the region, allowing militancy to fester.