Clinton is ‘best hope’ for salvaging U.S. relationship with Afghanistan

When it comes to salvaging the strained U.S. relationship with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Secretary Clinton is the best person for the job, according to Daily Beast writer and Hoover Institution research fellow Tunku Varadarajan. In his piece yesterday, "Bring on Hillary," he begins with "It’s time to end the sleazy whispering campaign against Karzai — and empower Hillary Clinton, America’s best hope to salvage relations with Afghanistan" and concludes:

Of all those who make (or mar) U.S. policy toward Afghanistan, Hillary is the one who bears no blame for the recent bad blood with Karzai. She has a fine grasp of the difference between diplomacy and bluster, and shutting her out of much of the main AfPak action has been a major — even calamitous — mistake. […]

One clear change that could, and should, be made to the architecture of our AfPak diplomacy is to elevate Hillary above Holbrooke in the AfPak theater. The latter has had an opportunity to make an impact. The results have been dreadful. It is now time to hand the job — the hardest in American diplomacy — to the hard lady of American politics.

(In the photo above, then-Senator Clinton meets with Karzai on Jan. 14, 2007, in Kabul, Afghanistan.)