Barack Obama envoy Richard Holbrooke warns of 'a new Iraq' as he heads to Pakistan

President Obama’s special envoy for Pakistan and Afghanistan hit out at previous US policy in the region yesterday as he embarked on his first tour of South Asia in his new job.“I have never seen anything like the mess we have inherited,” Richard Holbrooke said at a security conference in Munich that was also attended by top Afghan, Pakistani and Indian officials. “It is like no other problem we have confronted, and in my view it’s going to be much tougher than Iraq,” he added.
The 67-year-old former ambassador to the UN arrives in Pakistan this morning, and will head for Afghanistan on Thursday and India next Monday on a mission to overhaul US policy in the region. Mr Holbrooke has a reputation as a hard-nosed negotiator, best known for brokering the Dayton peace accords that ended the war in Bosnia in 1995.However, he has little experience of South Asia’s political minefields, few personal contacts in the region and no guarantee that his interlocutors will even be in power for much longer. President Zardari of Pakistan is chronically weak, with only nominal control of the army. President Karzai of Afghanistan looks increasingly unpopular at home and abroad ahead of presidential elections in August. India also faces national elections by May and Manmohan Singh, its 76-year-old Prime Minister, is recuperating at home after a heart bypass.Relations between all three countries are especially fraught because India blames Pakistani spies for the attacks on Mumbai in November as well as the bombing of its embassy in Kabul in July. Mr Holbrooke’s visit to Afghanistan will be overshadowed by recent criticism of President Karzai in Washington and rumours that President Obama is looking for a replacement. Mr Karzai will try to deflect US criticism by accusing Pakistan of allowing al-Qaeda and the Taleban to shelter in its northern tribal areas.“We know today what we seemed to neglect for several years – that terrorism did not emanate from Afghanistan’s villages and people; that there were sanctuaries outside our borders where terrorism might be defeated,” Mr Karzai told the conference.