Munich Conference

It is worth a little money to make sure the world’s governments are sort-of kind-of on the same page

This is the last bit I’ll have for you on the blog from this weekend’s Munich Security Conference. My extended column in the next issue will be about all the fun, and I’ll be a guest on Politics with Don Newman today at 5 p.m. Eastern on Newsworld to dish. (Remember, if you miss the broooadcast, you can always download the pooodcast.) Below is the last intervention of the three-day conference, at the end of the panel discussion that included Peter MacKay and David Petraeus. This is Richard Holbrooke, who was Bill Clinton’s ambassador to the U.N. and his special envoy for Bosnia (the Dayton Accords). He would probably have been secretary of state if Hillary Clinton had managed to become president, but instead he’s her (and her boss’s) special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan. “We often call it Af-Pak,” he told the Munich crowd, “and not only to save eight syllables,” which is good because it would save six. Parts of this transcript led the news after Sunday’s conference, but I wanted to give you nearly all of it, so you can really get a sense of the sense of foreboding Holbrooke left the crowd with.