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comprehensive strategy to end the Afghan war.
    On the eve of Holbrooke’s first visit to Pakistan as special representative, a Pakistani court ordered the removal of all restrictions on nuclear proliferator A. Q. Khan. The timing of the decision was meant to convey to the United States that Pakistan’s fundamental attitudes would not change anytime soon. The chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Howard Berman, cautioned that Khan’s release “could lead to reduction of U.S aid to Pakistan.” 8 But Holbrooke chose to ignore the event. His sights were on the broader strategic picture.
    Over the next two years Holbrooke developed close ties with Zardari, Kayani, and a host of Pakistani politicians and public figures. Along with National Security Adviser James Jones and with the full support of Secretary of State Clinton, Holbrooke organized a multilayered “Strategic Dialog” between Pakistan and the United States. The Dialog covered many tracks, from agriculture to security. Holbrooke’s team became involved with schemes for conserving water and managing Pakistan’s energy crisis. They sought to win the trust of Pakistani officials by handling issues such as opening the US market for Pakistani mangoes.
    But the Pakistani military and ISI mistrusted Holbrooke from the start. Kayani preferred to deal with Mullen, assuming that a man in uniform would be prove to be the more effective interlocutor. When the US Congress approved what came to be known as the Kerry-Lugar-Berman Bill, which authorized $1.5 billion annually for five years (a total of $7.5 billion), the Pakistani military reacted negatively to thebill’s conditions against military intervention in politics. The aid package was the largest the United States had ever offered Pakistan for civilian purposes such as education, health care, poverty alleviation, and infrastructure.
    All US foreign aid legislation included reporting requirements for the executive branch, and this bill was no exception. But hard-liners in the Pakistan army had convinced themselves that Holbrooke and I had connived to insert “humiliating” conditions about civilian control over the military. Pakistan’s religious nationalists termed it a conspiracy to put Pakistan’s army under American control. Holbrooke worked with Mullen and Senator John Kerry, a Democrat from Massachusetts, to defuse the situation. I offered to resign, but Zardari laughed off the affair as a routine effort to derail civilian rule.
    In an attempt at humor I sent a copy of Samuel Huntington’s book The Soldier and the State: The Theory and Politics of Civil-Military Relations to Kayani along with a four-page summary. The book deals with the role of a professional military in a democracy. Kayani acknowledged receiving the book and appreciated the summary. But I have no reason to believe that it affected his thinking or decisions in any significant way. Kayani was personally always agreeable with civilians. The Pakistan army, as an institution, still remained a long way from accepting the right of civilians to debate, let alone define, national interest.
    Holbrooke’s efforts at finding a comprehensive solution for the Afghan problem, including an end to terrorist safe havens, received little support from Pakistan’s generals. They sensed that he did not have the full backing of all parts of the US government. Media reports and some books spoke of Holbrooke lacking Obama’s full support, and Holbrooke’s critics suggested that he was “all over the place” and lacked pointed aims. But in Islamabad the sense was that the ISI could still deal separately with the CIA, and Mullen remained Kayani’s principal conversational partner.
    Pasha and the ISI continued to propel hypernationalist sentiment. Pasha once told me that this was one of the few tools Pakistan had for leveraging itself in an asymmetric relationship. Americans often