On one occasion in the summer of 2010, after the White House had systematically blocked every attempt to include reconciliation talks with the Taliban and serious regional diplomacy (which had to include Iran) on the agenda for national security meetings with the president, Clinton took a paper SRAP had prepared to Obama. She gave him the paper, explained what it laid out, and said, "Mr. President, I would like to get your approval on this." Obama nodded his approval, but that was all. So his White House staff, caught off guard by Clinton, found ample room to kill the paper in Washington's favorite way: condemning it to slow death in committee meetings. A few weeks after Clinton gave Obama the paper, I had to go to an "interagency" meeting organized by the White House that to my surprise was going to review the paper the president had already given the nod to. I remember telling Clinton about the meeting. She shook her head and exclaimed, "Unbelievable!"
Clinton got along well with Obama, but on Afghanistan and Pakistan the State Department had to fight tooth and nail just to have a hearing at the White House. Had it not been for Clinton's tenacity and the respect she commanded, the State Department would have had no influence on policymaking whatsoever. The White House had taken over most policy areas: Iran and the Arab-Israeli issue were for all practical purposes managed from the White House. AfPak was a rare exception, and that was owed to Holbrooke's quick thinking in getting SRAP going in February 2009, before the White House was able to organize itself.
The White House resented losing AfPak to the State Department. It fought hard to close down SRAP and take it back. That was one big reason the White House was on a warpath after Holbrooke. But Holbrooke would not back down, especially not when he thought those who wanted to wrest control of Afghanistan were out of their depth and not up to the job.
Turf battles are a staple of every administration, but the Obama White House has been particularly ravenous. Add to this the campaign hangover: Those in Obama's inner circle, veterans of his election campaign, were suspicious of Clinton. Even after Clinton proved she was a team player, they remained concerned about her popularity and feared that she could overshadow the president.
Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff until September 2011, told me Clinton "did a great job pushing her agenda, but it is incredible how little support she got from the White House. They want to control everything." Victories for the State Department were few and hard fought. It was little consolation that its recommendations on reconciliation with the Taliban or regional diplomacy to end the Afghan war eventually became official policy -- after the White House exhausted the alternatives.
The White House campaign against the State Department, and especially Holbrooke, was at times a theater of the absurd. Holbrooke was not included in Obama's videoconferences with Karzai, and he was cut out of the presidential retinue when Obama went to Afghanistan. At times it looked as if White House officials were baiting Karzai to complain about Holbrooke so they could get him fired.
The White House worried that talking to the Taliban would give Holbrooke a greater role. For months, the White House plotted to either block reconciliation with the Taliban or find an alternative to Holbrooke for managing the talks. Lute, who ran AfPak at the White House, floated the idea of the distinguished U.N. diplomat Lakhdar Brahimi leading the talks. Clinton objected to outsourcing American diplomacy to the United Nations. Pakistan, too, was cool to the idea. The "stop Holbrooke" campaign was not only a distraction -- it was influencing policy.
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