Kabul, October 22: If John Kerry had not gone to Kabul, it is possible that the Afghan picture would look very different.
The Senator for Massachusetts huddled with Barack Obama back in Washington yesterday, telling reporters later that a decision on troop numbers before the election results were clear would lack “common sense”.
It seem likely that his views will be taken seriously by Obama: details of the role he played in persuading President Hamid Karzai to accept a run-off vote began to emerge yesterday, and suggested that his influence was critical in the Americans getting the result they wanted.
Karzai had been subjected to telephone calls from world leaders, UN entreaties, and pressure from the international body charged with validating the results; in the end, though, the decisive factor for Mr Karzai was a quiet walk in the palace gardens with Mr Kerry, accompanied by reminiscences of the travails of losing an election to George Bush.
Obama was full of praise for his emissary yesterday, thanking him for his “tireless” work. Yet as smooth as the results seemed in retrospect, Mr Kerry’s mission was an accidental one. It was secretary of state Hillary Clinton who connected the dots last week between a long-planned trip by Kerry to the region and the possibility of a crisis if President Karzai resisted calls for a run-off. She sent an official to brief him on what he might do before he left.
–Agencies