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trip General Jones went completely off script and promised General Kayani, Pakistan’s top military man, a civilian nuclear deal in exchange for Pakistan’s cooperation. Panic struck the White House. It took a good deal of diplomatic tap dancing to take that offer off the table. In the end one of Kayani’s advisers told me that the general did not take Jones seriously, anyway; he knew it was a slipup. The National Security Council wanted to do the State Department’s job, but was not up to the task.
    Nor were Afghans and Pakistanis alone in being confused and occasionally amused by the White House’s maneuvers. They also baffled people in Washington. The White House encouraged U.S. ambassadors in Kabul and Islamabad to go around the State Department and work with the White House directly, undermining their own agency. Those ambassadors quickly learned how easy it was to manipulate the White House’s animus for Holbrooke to their own advantage. In particular, Karl Eikenberry, the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, became a handfulfor the State Department. In November 2010 Obama and Clinton went to Lisbon for a NATO summit and planned to meet with Karzai there. Eikenberry asked to go as well. Clinton turned down his request and instructed him to stay in Kabul, but, backed by the White House, he ignored the secretary of state and showed up in Lisbon.
    Even at the State Department reconciliation was not without its critics, some on Holbrooke’s team. Rina Amiri, Holbrooke’s other senior Afghanistan adviser, thought the whole idea of negotiating with the Taliban was a betrayal of the hopes and aspirations of the Afghan people—it would condemn them to relive their horrible Taliban past. She reminded Holbrooke at every turn that the Taliban could not be trusted. They had not abandoned their narrow view of Islam and draconian attitude toward women, they were relentless in visiting violence on the population, and only wanted America out of the way to take Afghanistan back where they left it in 2001. She insisted that most Afghans were wary of reconciliation—we should at least allay their fears by talking to them about the idea before moving ahead. Otherwise, women, civil society groups, and non-Pashtun minorities (Hazaras, Tajiks, and Uzbeks) who had fought against the Taliban in the Northern Alliance would never back a deal with the Taliban, and in a worst case, that could mean civil war. It was foolish to think Karzai could sell reconciliation to Afghans—he was not even consulting them on the idea. She thought America should convince him to make the case.
    Others echoed Amiri’s concerns and added that Pakistan had already tried reconciliation with its Pakistani Taliban and the outcome was hardly reassuring. The Taliban there had used truces to establish brutal theocracies and then resume fighting when they were ready. The Taliban were crafty interlocutors with an agenda. They too knew how to realize their goals by fighting and talking.
    Holbrooke listened to all these views, probed them, and debated their merits. But he concluded that we were not going to win the war, and we were not going to fight forever. We were going to leave at some point. Without a deal, we would still leave, only later, and with Afghanistan even worse off for years of fighting. In a deal we could address some of the issues the critics raised; without a deal, their worst predictions would come true. He thought we had to push ahead with reconciliation, but wehad to design the process and structure a final deal accounting for some, if not all, of the dangers Amiri and others had alerted him to.
    Pursuing reconciliation was difficult against the combined resistance of the Pentagon, the CIA, and the White House. It took a massive toll on Holbrooke. He knew it had to be done delicately and against strong resistance. Rubin provided the intellectual capital, arguing in ever greater detail that evidence showed the Taliban would come to the table; Karzai