after 2008-9, those of you who knew richard holbrooke knew that the hurricane hit pakistan and there was a set of very ambitious kamal of government if you will pools and structures that were put in to try to build a long-term commitment to pakistan. i use long term advisedly. the counter-terrorism effort, post september 11th. by its very nature, by almost the element of the way people understand was by its nature short-term. good to kill bad guys. this was to balance that short-term set of needs, american safety, the safety of our troops in afghanistan, the safety of the pakistani people got to balance that with a commitment to long-term stability and division, if you will, a common vision of long-term stability. it seems naive now after we've gone through the ensuing years, but i do believe that was done in good faith. in fact, there were many of the pakistan decide who gambled that it was going to work. those with the people. whenever you think of their ability as statesmen, with every take of their governments qualities, there was an element, a true, i believe, attempts to try to

back of the serbian army and eventually led to the dayton peace talks with the secretary and richard holbrooke who pushed for the settlement. >> host: we had in july of 1995 the forces of united nations peacekeepers who stood by and let it happen. >> guest: i would not use the phrase united nations peacekeepers stood by and let it happen. we had dutch companies, rather small group. this was part of the problem. in the sense that i was very much involved. when they started talking of establishing safe areas, i had my commanders do a study. a study of what would be required to make that save area truly safe. there were two things they suggested. one, it would have to be wide enough in diameter to get it outside, beyond the range so that they cannot come in and attack the people. second, it would require 34,600 troops. the member states were having none of that. in fact, they changed the mandate and there was no protection or anything in it. they established a safe area and a bonnet the weakest option to the weakest option of 7600, for the areas and when you do that, you are not able and the diam

when their power was brought to bear, he eventually lead them to the peace talks with richard holbrook, who pushed for this effort. >> host: in july of 1995, [inaudible] united nations peacekeeping stood by and let it happen. >> guest: i would not use the phrase that they let it happen. the united peacekeepers. we had a dutch group, rather small group, this is a part of the problem. in the sense that i was very much involved when they started talking of establishing safe areas, i had my commanders do a study, a study of what would the requirement be to make the save. truly say. there were two things they suggested. one is why do nothing to get beyond the range so that they can attack people. again, it will require 82,000 troops. in fact, in the mandate, there was nowhere for protection or anything. the same rules established the safe area. they went to the weakest option of 7600 in the areas. when you do that, the diameter wasn't wide enough. they didn't have the resources to do it properly. and the peacekeepers -- and there were several that were agreed to. so the peacekeepers who wer

political interests of neighboring countries are such that it's much more likely to do what richard holbrook, for instance, always wanted to do which is to bring together a regional grouping that will help stabilize the country and help safeguard i think real gains we did make. >> last thought? >> look, i think that cutting and running at this point is a bad strategy. we have to try to stick with the course we're on which is that get out by 2014. i think that everybody understands that that is what is going to happen. we've got to give the afghan people at least a prospect of some kind of order that's going to be maintained in the aftermath. and there's only one way to do that which is train up the afghan army, the police is clearly a problem. but the afghan army can still play an important role in ensuring that it doesn't just descend into chaos after we leave. i think there's a high risk of that. it becomes certain if we follow the approach that is being advocated by richard and anne-marie. >> that's not fair, martin. we're not saying to get out. nobody's talking about cutting and running.

i remember richard holbrooke telling me before he died that essentially obama was betting his presidency on his afghan policy. essentially that afghan policy, the surge, i think in retrospect, was a mistake. the president blew it. he tripled the number of troops in afghanistan and just yesterday we had the biggest loss of aircraft because of an attack since the vietnam war. and yet romney isn't able to capitalize on that kind of issue because every time he does speak about foreign policy, he seems to commit a gaffe. and so i think the president has been able to in a sense protect himself from his own mistakes by this perception that romney just a neophyte on foreign policy. >> one quick question to all of you. on a scale of 1 to 10 given where we are right now, how important is this first debate coming up? >> a 7. >> 7, really? >> mark? >> 10. >> 10? what do you think, jackie? >> i'm going to take the middle ground and say 8 1/2. >> we're going to see. we'll watch the polls and watch the daebts. we'll talk about it a lot leading up to it. what a great conversation. great to have you all

that is what richard holbrooke wanted to do, god bless him. but i think the reservoir of people who cared deeply what americans think about their country is great. if you go to syria, we have a 20% favorable rating and about 10% of people who care about us. in pakistan, it is 95% of people who care deeply. it gives us the chance to have a positive effect on that country. i'm not looking for the team that turner document -- what it's love got to do with it. this country has more than any other countries i have served in, blatant pro-americas of. i have never been in a country where i have felt that strongly. it's not a question of ideology, it is a question about the way people always -- it's what they say in iowa -- there just had its. charity, things like that. -- there just habits. i still maintain after getting kicked around for two years that there is a huge affinity between the cultures and that's why working at a more cultural, social level, showing the side of the united states most people desperately want to see, which we have not been

i haven't run into my old friend dick holbrook, richard holbrook, well-known ambassador in this town. mad hatter, very keen new sense as well. until them i'm thinking about going to germany. he said, that is a great idea. something's going on over there. we had no idea the walls were to come down. so i took off. we had very enterprising bureaus, thankfully in those days, and also a team out there ahead of me. one of them made arrangements for me to interview propaganda cheap for east germany on a wednesday night. are they to say i was operating out of the eastern sector. that was pretty unique. what was happening in those days is that ger was sending people outside to the normal northern borders near czechoslovakia. they were not letting people comment. the checks were not happy about that. there was a fair amount of chaos going on. at the end of tuesday, we put on an interesting program. this situation is very interesting here. gorbachev was remaining neutral. he wasn't sending tanks or russian signals or even anonymous signals. on wednesday i went out to work again. late in the afte