Accidental diplomat breaks Kabul stand-off

If John Kerry had not gone to Kabul, it is possible that the Afghan picture would look very different.

The senator for Massachusetts huddled with Barack Obama back in Washington yesterday, telling reporters later that a decision on troop numbers before the election results were clear would lack "common sense".

It seem likely that his views will be taken seriously by Obama: details of the role he played in persuading Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, to accept a run-off vote began to emerge yesterday, and suggested that his influence was critical in the Americans getting the result they wanted.

Karzai had been subjected to calls from world leaders, United Nation entreaties, and pressure from the international body charged with validating the results.

In the end, though, the decisive factor for Karzai was a quiet walk in the palace gardens with Kerry, accompanied by reminiscences of the travails of losing an election to George Bush.

Obama was full of praise for his emissary yesterday, thanking him for his "tireless" work.

Yet as smooth as the results seemed, Kerry's mission was an accidental one. It was Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, who connected the dots last week between a long-planned trip by Kerry to the region and the possibility of a crisis if Karzai resisted calls for a run-off.

She sent an official to brief him on what he might do before he left.

On Friday night, Kerry was eating dinner with troops in Kabul when the United States ambassador, Karl Eikenberry, told him that Karzai was showing signs of baulking at the findings of the voting commission. It was agreed the two would pay a surprise visit to Karzai's palace that night.

Thus Kerry found himself at the start of almost 20 hours of negotiations with the president over four days.

Karzai also received calls from Gordon Brown, the British prime minister, French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner and Clinton, all of whom urged him to accept the findings of fraud. But Kerry was the spearhead.

Eventually - after the two men had consumed "gallons of tea" and pounds of lamb - Karzai agreed to accept the findings.

The deal seemed settled, only for Karzai to get cold feet at the last moment. It was then, according to sources quoted by Associated Press, that Kerry took the President on a long walk through the palace gardens.

He told Karzai of his own decision to concede to George W Bush after the 2004 US election, even though he had doubts about ballot-counting in Ohio.

There are times, he said, when tough decisions have to be taken putting country before self. A delayed press conference followed.

The good news for Karzai is that a new vote would return a little of the credibility that he has lost. Moreover, the US and Nato would have a partner in Afghanistan they know, even if the lustre that Karzai once had has long since worn off.

But if a run-off can be held successfully the list of things Washington will be expecting of a new Karzai government will be long.

First on that list will be a new push to persuade the President to make a serious effort to root out corruption in the government. So far he has shown little appetite for the exercise. To persuade him otherwise, another gargantuan diplomatic effort may be necessary. How that will be executed if Kerry is back in the Senate remains to be seen.

- INDEPENDENT