Costanza meets Holbrooke

We’ve all had the experience of suddenly realizing what we should have said, but long after the opportunity to say it has passed. (On Seinfeld, George Costanza was once obsessed with this problem). Anyway, it happened to me last week, during a seminar with Special Representative for Afghanistan/Pakistan Richard Holbrooke, prior to his public appearance at the Institute of Politics Forum here.  

During the discussion, I asked Holbrooke a less-than-inspired question and he gave a perfectly reasonable if not especially illuminating answer. (It was an off-the-record session so I can’t tell you what I asked or what he said. But trust me, it wasn’t a very good question). And then an hour later, as I was traveling home, I realized what I should have asked him.

Some of you may recall Holbrooke’s remark at a conference in DC last August, when he defined success in Afghanistan with "the Supreme Court test: we’ll know it when we see it."  (The reference is to Justice Potter Stewart’s famous definition of pornography). That’s a bit vague, as several critics noted at the time. But it raises the question that I wish I had asked: How would Holbrooke identify or define failure? In other words, what developments or events in Afghanistan and Pakistan would lead him, in his best professional judgment, to advise President Obama that our efforts there were not working and that it was time to disengage? 

To ask the question is not to hope for an unsuccessful outcome; or even to suggest that one thinks failure is likely. But unless we are willing to stay in Afghanistan forever no matter what, we need to be as alert for signs that our efforts aren’t working as we are in looking for signs of success.

I missed my chance, but maybe a reader out there will get the chance to pose the question down the road. I’d love to hear what he says.