The White House, however, did not want to try anything as audacious as diplomacy. It was an art lost on America's top decision-makers. They had no experience with it and were daunted by the idea of it.
While running for president, Obama had promised a new chapter in U.S. foreign policy: America would move away from Bush's militarized foreign policy and take engagement seriously. When it came down to brass tacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan, however, Clinton was the lonely voice making the case for diplomacy.
During the 2009 strategic review, Clinton had supported the additional troops but was not on board with the deadline Obama imposed on the surge, nor did she support hasty troop withdrawals. Clinton thought those decisions looked a lot like cut-and-run and would damage America's standing in the world. Add this to where she came out on a host of other national security issues -- including pushing Obama to go ahead with the Abbottabad operation to kill or capture bin Laden and breaking with the Pentagon to advocate using U.S. air power in Libya -- and it is safe to say she was, and remains, tough on national security issues.
But Clinton shared Holbrooke's belief that the purpose of hard power is to facilitate diplomatic breakthroughs. During many meetings I attended with her, she would ask us to make the case for diplomacy and would then quiz us on our assumptions and plan of action. At the end of these drills she would ask us to put it all in writing for the benefit of the White House.
Holbrooke and Clinton had a tight partnership. They were friends. Clinton trusted Holbrooke's judgment and valued his counsel. They conferred often (not just on Afghanistan and Pakistan), and Clinton protected Holbrooke from an obdurate White House. The White House kept a dossier on Holbrooke's misdeeds, and Clinton kept a folder on churlish attempts by the White House's AfPak office to undermine Holbrooke, which she eventually gave to Tom Donilon, Obama's national security advisor. The White House tried to blame Holbrooke for leaks to the media. Clinton called out the White House on its own leaks. She sharply rebuked the White House after journalist Steve Coll wrote in the New Yorker about a highly secret meeting with the Taliban that he was told about by a senior White House official.
Whenever possible, Clinton went to the president directly, around the so-called Berlin Wall of staffers who shielded Obama from any option or idea they did not want him to consider. Clinton had regular weekly private meetings with the president. She had asked for the "one-on-ones" as a condition for accepting the job in hopes of ensuring that the White House would not conveniently marginalize her and the State Department.
Even then, however, she had a tough time getting the administration to bite. Obama was sympathetic in principle but not keen on showing daylight between the White House and the military. Talking to enemies was a good campaign sound bite, but once in power Obama was too skittish to try it.
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