Holbrooke's Secret Disappointment

Special envoy Richard Holbrooke passed away on Monday from complications of a torn aorta, but his last position in the White House came with frustrations that lasted until his dying day. According to John Barry of Newsweek, "He was accomplishing nothing; he knew it, and he saw the military persuading Obama to edge deeper into what he had come to see as another unwinnable war, like Vietnam." Holbrooke had dreamed of becoming the secretary of State one day—a position he thought could garner the same change he created during the 1995 Dayton accords in former Yugoslavia. But after three attempts to gain the position, he took President Obama's offer as special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan. Holbrooke was convinced that the situation in Afghanistan was another Vietnam, especially with the resistance from Pakistan's and Afghanistan's presidents.