Sheriff's New Gun

Also See: Vinod Mehta: Sorry, I Take That Back

When the United States ambassador to India, Robert D. Blackwill, boarded a special US Air Force plane on July 18, Friday, very few at even the American Embassy in Delhi knew his destination. Flying over Pakistan, and accompanied by Ashley Tellis, his erstwhile advisor in India, Blackwill's plane entered the chaos that is Afghanistan. Soon he landed in Kabul to meet Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai and his cabinet colleagues. The return journey took him to a place not on his itinerary: Islamabad, where he was forced to land due to inclement weather. The commute back from Kabul to Delhi ultimately took him all of 25 hours.

Blackwill's unpublicised, near-furtive visit to Kabul was essentially a political reconnaissance trip, a foretaste of the new assignment he has accepted from US President George W. Bush. In the air for some time, it is now confirmed that Blackwill will work in the National Security Council as Bush's deputy assistant on Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan. On his plate will also be a fourth portfolio: policy planning. At one stroke, Blackwill has leapfrogged over several rungs of the hierarchy in Washington, and can now be counted among the top policymakers in the US.

Blackwill's new job effectively anoints him as the veritable new czar of Afghanistan. And, as the presidential pointsman for Iraq and Iran, his task would be to ensure that Bush's policy on these two countries succeed, or at least remain on course, during the year the United States enters election mode. This means Blackwill will shoulder among the biggest, toughest assignments in Washington, fraught with imponderables as he himself might concede, albeit grudgingly. In comparison, his task of transforming America's relations with India is going to look like a picnic.

When Blackwill announced his decision to relinquish the post of ambassador in New Delhi, he had planned to take a breather in Boston and then instruct at the prestigious Harvard University where he was scheduled to teach a course on strategy during the Fall semester. On April 28, the Kennedy School at Harvard even announced the return of "scholar-practitioner" Blackwill. And he had already immersed himself in mapping out the course work, and also conceptualising the book he wanted to write about his experiences in India.

It was about then that he accompanied deputy prime minister L.K. Advani to the US last month. President Bush, in a meeting which didn't receive much publicity, told Blackwill he had something in mind for him. Would he take charge of Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq and policy planning? The presidential query, say sources, was "like a bolt from the blue".

Never known to shy away from challenges, Blackwill sought some time to consult with his wife, Wera Hildebrand. (By then his luggage in Delhi had even been packed and earmarked for freight forwarding to Boston.) Once Wera gave her consent, Blackwill was back in Washington, again: to convey his acceptance and chart out the next steps in what are, arguably, troubled waters. The task appears particularly gargantuan because Blackwill's knowledge of both Afghanistan and Iran did not, at that point of time, measure to even the standards he would ordinarily set for his students at Harvard.

But that has never inhibited Blackwill. When he came to India, he arrived here with an enormous track record in European processes, Russia, even China, on which he is a known dove. India was some place he had seen only on maps and read about in books. Yet, when Blackwill leaves New Delhi next week, US relations with India have been totally transformed, though perhaps not to the degree he would have wanted to.

Iraq may present less of a challenge. If only because Blackwill has known the American administrator in Baghdad, Paul Bremer, from the '70s, when the two worked for then secretary of state Henry Kissinger.Incidentally, Bremer is widely known as a Kissinger protege, and Blackwill in his Senate confirmation speech as ambassador to India mentioned Kissinger as one of his mentors. (Kissinger also frequently surfaces anecdotally in Blackwill's public speeches and private conversations).

Sources say Blackwill's new assignment ought to suit his workaholic inclinations. For one, he will have company in the form of close friend and senior Condoleezza Rice who keeps similar odd office hours. She gets up early, does weights at her Watergate apartment and is in office by 6.30 am. It looks like 15-hour workdays for him.

Blackwill goes to work the Washington beltway with, sources say, "an intimate knowledge and a high degree of sensitivity to India's interests in Afghanistan." It may be recalled that a demarche was issued last November by the US asking India to lay off the idea of moving rapidly on opening consulates in Kandahar and Jalalabad, a move that factored in the acute Pakistani sensitivities on Afghanistan. India can hope that Blackwill may bring a better sense of balance between the competing interests of India and Pakistan there.

Meanwhile, Pakistan has reason to look askance at Blackwill's new assignment. The Pakistani high commissioner to India, Aziz Ahmed Khan, once accused him of acting like the spokesman of the Indian external affairs ministry. And when it was announced that Blackwill was to leave India, Khan was quoted saying, "Kashmiris must be delighted at his impending departure." (All such sentiments or otherwise were not expressed at the time Blackwill unexpectedly landed in Islamabad.)

With his exit, however, sources say links between the US state department and the American embassy will "work better and a higher degree of confidence will be reposed in the mission". Policy differences between Blackwill holding forth in India and the bureaucrats in the department were common and often volatile. The top rungs of the state department hierarchy are not members of the Blackwill Fan Club because he did them the greatest injustice—ignoring them as he went about his ambassadorial business. "For all practical purposes, he felt he had to report to the White House and not the state department," said one official.

While the state department's South Asia bureau may now call the shots in New Delhi, they will still have to contend with Blackwill over Afghanistan policy. Interestingly, the bureau would like to see Blackwill restricted to West Asia when he returns to Washington. And for obvious reasons—they worked hard to get him out and now don't want him sitting in the National Security Council, adjacent to the White House and calling the shots.

Blackwill's new assignment may prompt New Delhi to nurture hopes in Afghanistan. But this perceived advantage could get offset in Iran. Though it is not yet clear how much Iran will loom into Blackwill's focus, diplomats point out that he has already cautioned India on developing defence ties with Iran.