Richard Holbrooke, R.I.P.

Breaking news this hour is that Richard Holbrooke, our uber-ambassador to Afghanistan and Pakistan, has died. I remember laying awake half the night at the Exercise Barracks at Yongsan Garrison, reading his Bosnia memoir, “To End a War,” and gaining an appreciation for the superiority of Holbrooke’s brand of diplomacy as compared to Warren Christopher’s. By the end of the book, Holbrooke had become an advocate of pax Americana, and a skeptic of European diplomacy. His direct and forceful diplomacy may have been right for the Balkans, but more recently, he seemed a poor fit for the Af-Pak position. It will always be a shadow on his legacy that he was one of Christopher Hill’s main boosters. Anyway, the news is still very sad. He was a young 69.