In November 2011, six months after the Abbottabad operation, twenty-four Pakistani soldiers were killed by U.S. forces in a tragic accident along the border with Afghanistan. The United States quickly offered condolences, but Pakistani emotions ran high. In response Pakistan’s government closed NATO’s supply lines into Afghanistan, and the Parliament launched a review of relations with the United States. The Pakistanis wanted a direct apology, and the White House was unwilling to give it. Military shipping containers sat idle for months, creating logistical challenges for our troops, adding financial costs for us—$100 million a month—and depriving the Pakistanis of much-needed revenue.
With no progress on reopening the supply lines by the time of the NATO Summit in Chicago in May 2012, I suggested to President Obama that we needed a different approach to resolve the impasse. He agreed, over objections from both the National Security Council and Defense, to let me try. Some of the President’s advisors, keeping their eyes on the reelection campaign, were allergic to the idea of any apology, especially to the country that had harbored bin Laden. But to help supply Coalition troops we needed to sort it out. I told the President I would absorb any incoming political attacks. I met with President Zardari in Chicago and told him I needed his help to get the supply lines open, just as his government needed the payments it received for permitting convoys to traverse Pakistan. I dispatched Deputy Secretary Tom Nides, an experienced negotiator, to sit down in private with Pakistan’s Finance Minister. This was one of those calls where a willingness to recognize error is not a sign of weakness but a pragmatic compromise. So I gave Tom clear instructions: Be discreet, be reasonable, and get a deal done.
The back channel helped soothe Pakistani feelings. When I met with Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar, who had replaced Qureshi, in Istanbul in June, I could tell we were close to a resolution. By early July we sealed an agreement. I acknowledged the mistakes that resulted in the loss of Pakistani military lives and again offered our sincere condolences. Both sides were sorry for losses suffered in the struggle against terrorism. The Pakistanis reopened the border, allowing us to conduct the planned drawdown of Coalition forces at a much lower cost than if we had had to take a different route. Tom and the Finance Minister kept their dialogue going and even published a joint op-ed exploring possible areas of cooperation, especially in economic development.
The negotiations and eventual agreement over the supply lines offer lessons for how the United States and Pakistan can work together in the future to pursue shared interests. As U.S. combat troops leave Afghanistan, the nature of our relationship will change. But both countries will still have interests that depend upon the other. So we’ll need to find ways to work together constructively. Future disagreements and distractions are inevitable, but if we want results we have no choice other than to stay focused and pragmatic.
Meanwhile al Qaeda had been dealt a serious blow, though it was not yet defeated. Because of the operation in Abbottabad, the SEALs returned with extensive new intelligence about the inner workings of al Qaeda. It would add to what we already understood about the spread of affiliated organizations: Somalia’s Al Shabaab, North Africa’s al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, and al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which were becoming bigger threats every day. The death of bin Laden, and the loss of so many of his top lieutenants, would certainly degrade the capacity of al Qaeda’s core in Afghanistan and Pakistan to stage new attacks against the West. At the same time, however, this would shift influence and momentum to the affiliates, creating a more diffuse and complex threat.
Faced with this evolving challenge, I felt even more certain that we needed to pursue the smart power approach to counterterrorism I had described to the President in 2010. At the State Department we had been quietly working to develop the tools and capabilities we would need, including expanding our counterterrorism office into a full-fledged bureau headed by an Assistant Secretary of State. But working with the rest of the government could be frustratingly slow. We had to fight for every penny of funding, and despite the President’s pointed comments in July 2010, it took more than a year to get the White House to issue an executive order establishing the Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications. We finally received it on September 9, 2011. That same day I visited the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York and delivered a major speech explaining our strategy to bulk up the civilian side of counterterrorism.
Twelve days later, on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, I inaugurated the Global Counterterrorism Forum. Turkey served as cochair, and nearly thirty other nations joined us, including Middle Eastern and other Muslim-majority countries. Early results over the following two years were encouraging. The United Arab Emirates agreed to host an international center focused on countering violent extremism, and a center on justice and the rule of law is set to open in Malta. These institutions will train police, educators, religious and community leaders, and policymakers. They’ll bring together experts on communications who understand how to undermine extremist propaganda, and law enforcement agents who can help governments and communities learn to protect themselves from terrorists. They’ll also work with educators who can devise curricula free of hatred and give teachers the tools to protect at-risk children from recruitment by extremists.
An early focus of the Global Counterterrorism Forum was kidnapping for ransom, which emerged as a top funding tool for al Qaeda affiliates in North Africa and around the world, especially as other financial avenues were closed off to them. With strong U.S. support, the Forum developed a code of conduct that would stop nations from paying ransoms, which only encourages more kidnapping. The United Nations Security Council backed the code, and the African Union set up trainings to help security forces across the region develop alternative tactics.
We made some progress on the communications front as well. For example, as the Arab Spring swept through the Middle East, our new Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications worked hard to show that al Qaeda was on the wrong side of history. One short video clip the team produced and circulated online began with a recording of al Qaeda’s new leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, claiming that peaceful action would never bring about change in the Middle East, followed by footage of peaceful protests in Egypt and celebrations after the fall of Mubarak. The video stirred up a flurry of responses across the region. “Zawahiri has no business with Egypt; we will solve our problems ourselves,” wrote one commentator on the website Egypt Forum.
This kind of ideological battle is slow and incremental but important, because al Qaeda and its terrorist affiliates cannot survive without a steady flow of new recruits to replace the terrorists who are killed or captured and because unchecked propaganda can ignite instability and inspire attacks. We saw this in September 2012, when extremists whipped up outrage across the Muslim world over an offensive but obscure internet video about the Prophet Muhammad. U.S. embassies and consulates in many countries were targeted as a result.
If we step back and take a broader view, we can see that violent extremism is bound up with nearly all of today’s complex global problems. It can take root in zones of crisis and poverty, flourish under repression and in the absence of the rule of law, spark hatred between communities that have lived side-by-side for generations, and exploit conflict within and between states. That is an argument for America to be engaged in the hardest places with the toughest challenges around the world.
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PART FOUR
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Between Hope and History
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Europe: Ties That Bind
There’s a Girl Scouts song I learned in elementary school: “Make new friends, but keep the old. One is silver, and the other gold.” For America, our alliance with Europe is worth more than gold.
When the United States was attacked on September 11, 2001, European nations stood with us wit
hout hesitation. A headline in the French newspaper Le Monde proclaimed, “We are all Americans.” The day after the attack, NATO (the North Atlantic Treaty Organization) invoked Article V of the Washington Treaty for the first time in history, which stipulates that an attack on one ally is an attack on all of the allies. After decades of Americans standing alongside Europeans in places ranging from Utah Beach to Checkpoint Charlie to Kosovo, the Europeans were letting us know that they wanted to be right there beside us in our hour of need.
Unfortunately, from that high-water mark, the relationship deteriorated. Most of our European allies disagreed with the decision to invade Iraq. Many were put off by the “you’re either with us or against us” style of President George W. Bush’s Administration, exemplified by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s dismissive description of France and Germany as “Old Europe” at the height of the Iraq debate in early 2003. By 2009 positive views of America across Europe had eroded significantly, from 83 percent approval in the United Kingdom and 78 percent in Germany in 2000 to 53 and 31 percent, respectively, at the end of 2008. Clearly, the new Obama Administration had our work cut out for us.
Probably our greatest asset in turning the tide of European public opinion was “the Obama Effect.” Across the continent many Europeans were incredibly excited about our new President. As a candidate in July 2008, he had electrified an enormous crowd of nearly 200,000 people in Berlin. The day after the election a French newspaper headline proclaimed, “An American Dream.” In fact expectations ran so high that managing them and channeling all that positive energy into lasting progress became an early challenge.
Despite Bush-era strains, our bonds ran far deeper than any disagreements about particular policies. Our European allies remained America’s partners of first resort on nearly every challenge. And above all, this was an alliance of values, rooted in a deep commitment to liberty and democracy. The scars of two world wars and the Cold War were receding into history, but many Europeans were still mindful of the great sacrifices that Americans had made to keep them free. More than sixty thousand American soldiers lay buried in France alone.
The vision of Europe as whole, free, and at peace had been a goal of every U.S. administration since the end of the Cold War. At its heart was the notion that peoples and countries could move beyond old conflicts to chart a peaceful and prosperous future. I had seen how difficult this could be, how tightly the chains of history bound entire generations and societies. I once asked an official from southern Europe how things were going in her country. She started her answer by saying, “Since the Crusades . . .” That’s how deep memories ran in many parts of Europe and indeed around the world, as if the 20th and 21st centuries were just so much topsoil. Even as memory bound together neighbors and allies and saw them through difficult times, it also kept old hatreds alive and prevented people from turning their focus to the future. Yet the people of Western Europe had shown that it was possible to shake off the burdens of the past when they reconciled in the years after World War II. We saw it again after the fall of the Berlin Wall, when Central and Eastern Europe began the process of integration with each other and with the nations of the European Union.
By 2009 historic progress had been achieved across much of the continent, and in many ways we were closer than ever to the vision of a whole, free, peaceful Europe. But it was more fragile than many Americans may have realized. Along Europe’s periphery, southern European economies reeled from the financial crisis, the Balkans struggled still with the scars of war, democracy and human rights were under threat in too many former Soviet republics, and Russia under Putin had invaded Georgia, reawakening old fears. My predecessors had worked to build our alliances in Europe and to support the movement toward greater unity, freedom, and peace across the continent. Now it was my turn to pick up the baton and do everything I could to renew old ties and manage old conflicts.
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Relations between nations are based on shared interests and values—but also on personalities. The personal element matters more in international affairs than many would expect, for good or ill. Think of the famous friendship between Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher that helped win the Cold War or the feud between Khrushchev and Mao that helped lose it. It was with this in mind that I began reaching out to key European leaders starting on my first full day at the State Department. Some I already knew and liked from my time as First Lady and Senator. Others would become new friends. But all of them would be our valuable partners in the work we hoped to do.
I began every call with a message of America’s reassurance and renewed commitment. David Miliband, the British Foreign Secretary, caused me to gulp and smile simultaneously when he said, “My goodness, your predecessors have left you with a world of problems. It’s a Herculean job, but I think you’re the right Hercules for this task.” I was flattered (as I was meant to be) but made clear that what I thought we needed was renewed partnership and common action, not a lone mythological hero.
David proved to be an invaluable partner. He was young, energetic, smart, creative, and attractive, with a ready smile. We found our views on how the world was changing remarkably similar. He believed in the importance of civil society and shared my concern for the growing numbers of out-of-work and disconnected young people in Europe, the United States, and around the world. In addition to becoming good professional colleagues, we developed a genuine friendship.
David’s boss was the embattled Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Tony Blair’s successor. Gordon, an intelligent and dogged Scotsman, ended up presiding over the economic recession that hit Britain hard. He was dealt a bad hand, including the baggage of Tony’s unpopular support of Bush’s decision to invade Iraq. When he hosted the G-20 meeting in London in April 2009, I could see the strain he was under. He went on to lose the next election and was replaced by David Cameron, a Tory. President Obama and Cameron took to each other right off, starting with a private meeting before Cameron’s electoral victory. They had an easy rapport and enjoyed each other’s company. Cameron and I met together a number of times over the years, both with and without President Obama. He was intellectually curious and eager to exchange ideas about world events, from the unfolding Arab Spring to the crisis in Libya and the ongoing debate over economic austerity versus growth.
For Foreign Secretary, Cameron chose William Hague, a former leader of the Tory Party and an implacable political foe of Tony Blair in the late 1990s. Before the election, when he was still the Shadow Foreign Secretary, he came to see me in Washington. We both started off a bit cautiously with each other, but, much to my delight, I found him a thoughtful statesman with good sense and good humor. He also became a good friend. I was a fan of his biography of William Wilberforce, the chief advocate for ending slavery in 19th-century England. Hague brought to his job the understanding that diplomacy is slow and often boring but absolutely necessary. At a farewell dinner he hosted for me in 2013 at the British Embassy in Washington, his toast included the following gem: “It was a great former British Foreign Secretary and Prime Minister Lord Salisbury who said that diplomatic victories ‘are made up of a series of microscopic advantages: of a judicious suggestion here, of an opportune civility there, of a wise concession at one moment and a far-sighted persistence at another, of sleepless tact, immovable calmness, and patience that no folly, no provocation, no blunder can shake.’ ” That pretty well summed up my experience as America’s chief diplomat. It also reminded me that Hague was the David Beckham of toasting!
Across the English Channel I found other memorable partners. Bernard Kouchner, the French Foreign Minister, was a Socialist physician serving Nicolas Sarkozy, a Conservative President. Bernard had started Médecins Sans Frontières, or Doctors Without Borders, which provides medical care in disaster and conflict zones in some of the poorest places on earth. He was a key player after the devastating earthquake in Haiti in January 2010. I also worked closely with his successor, Alain Juppé
, and later with Laurent Fabius, appointed by Sarkozy’s successor, François Hollande, who was elected in May 2012. Although from opposing political parties, Juppé and Fabius were both consummate professionals and enjoyable company.
Most leaders are quieter in person than they appear to be on the stage. Not Sarkozy. He was even more dramatic—and fun—in person. Sitting in a meeting with him was always an adventure. He’d jump up and gesture dramatically as he made his points, with his intrepid female interpreter struggling to keep up but usually managing to mimic him flawlessly, inflections and all. Sarkozy’s rapid-fire, almost stream-of-consciousness soliloquies covered the waterfront of foreign policy, sometimes making it challenging to get a word in edgewise, but I never tired of trying. He would gossip, casually describing other world leaders as crazy or infirm; one was a “drug-addled maniac”; another had a military “that didn’t know how to fight”; yet another came from a long line of “brutes.” Sarkozy was forever asking why all the diplomats who came to see him were so unforgivably old, gray, and male. We would laugh, debate, and argue, but most of the time we would end up agreeing on what needed to be done. Sarkozy was intent on reasserting France’s place as a top world power and eager to shoulder more of an international burden, which I saw in action in Libya. And despite his exuberance, he was always a gentleman. One chilly day in January 2010, as I was walking up the steps of the Élysée Palace in Paris to greet him, I stepped out of my shoe, leaving me barefoot in front of the press, who gleefully snapped pictures. He gracefully took my hand and helped me regain my footing. Later I sent him a copy of the photograph inscribed, “I may not be Cinderella but you’ll always be my Prince Charming.”
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