The London conference on Afghanistan on January 28 was a high watermark of the US’s AfPak diplomacy. To shepherd incorrigible skeptics as India, China and Russia into the Lancaster House and to get them go along with the US script to “reintegrate” and reconcile the Afghan Taliban was no mean achievement.

The diplomacy leading to the Lancaster House conference unmistakably had a “Holbrookean” touch – to give credit to the US’s AfPak special representative Richard Holbrooke, who was excelling his own awesome performance at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio, some fifteen years ago when he dismembered the former state of Yugoslavia canton by canton. The US worked on the contradictions among the regional players to make sure there were no serious local initiatives on Afghanistan challenging its own.

However, all good things must come to an end. During the weeks since the London conference AfPak diplomacy has been on a roller coaster. It all began with the “capture” of Taliban’s deputy head Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence in Karachi soon after the London conference. At one stroke, by nabbing Baradar, ISI scotched future prospects for any covert AfPak diplomacy with the Taliban behind its back. The US has been put on notice that any dealings with the Taliban should proceed through proper channel, namely, the ISI.

Within a week of that came another blow when Afghan President Hamid Karzai struck without prior notice. He announced his masterly decision to “Afghanize” the country’s Election Commission. In essence, he drew a red line and underscored he won’t brook any more American proxies represented in the powerful election supervisory body. Karzai once again outwitted his erstwhile American mentors by making sure there will be no more attempts to bring about regime change in Kabul as was attempted during the presidential election.

Afghanistan is heading toward parliamentary election in August. Karzai hopes that the representative character of the parliament can be significantly enhanced if some of today’s insurgents can be persuaded to take part in the election. But Washington’s worry is that the newly elected parliament may provide a political base for Karzai to forestall any US-British-Pakistani attempt to reset the calculus of power in Kabul as part of a deal with the Taliban. Karzai’s skill for forming coalitions is legion.

To rub salt into the wound, Karzai announced his move just as Holbrooke paid a visit to Kabul. Karzai probably forgot to take Holbrooke into confidence. At any rate, Washington was forced to put a brave face on Karzai’s snub.

But what followed was much worse. Holbrooke literally asked for trouble when he suo moto waded into the topic of the terrorist attack in Kabul which resulted in the killing of 9 Indians including two senior army officers. At a press briefing in Washington on March 2, he rubbished the preliminary Indian assessment (and of Afghan officials) that it was a targetted attack by the Pakistani militant group Lashkar-i-Taiba.

Holbrooke said: “I don’t accept the fact that this was an attack on an Indian facility like the embassy. They were foreigners, non-Indian foreigners hurt. It was a soft target. And let’s not jump to conclusions. I understand why everyone in Pakistan and everyone in India always focuses on the other. But, please, let’s not draw a conclusion which – for which there’s no proof.”

In principle, Holbrooke was right insofar as the inquiry into the Kabul attack is still under way and it is not yet time to draw conclusions. But why he spoke at all – and its awkward timing – becomes important. After all, diplomacy is also about remaining silent. Especially when Delhi and Islamabad are entangled in high-strung diplomacy under close US watch from behind the curtain.

The feeling in Delhi is that Holbrooke spoke on purpose. He is no doubt a consummate diplomat. It seems Holbrooke was likely indulging in a complex image-building exercise with Islamabad, which treats him with elaborate courtesy and lavish hospitality but prefers to do hard business with the Pentagon on the substantive issues of AfPak policy.

The harsh reality is that Pakistan is in a position to make or unmake AfPak diplomacy – and AfPak diplomats. It holds the trump cards to deliver the Taliban at the negotiating table. Islamabad is skilled enough to manipulate Washington. With Kabul spinning out of control and Islamabad making a mockery of AfPak diplomacy, Holbrooke most probably spoke out under pressure. Viewed from Delhi, however, Holbrooke seems to have made a high-profile attempt to please Islamabad and ingratiate himself with the powers that be who control Lashkar-i-Taiba.

Whether he will succeed in this enterprise or not remains to be seen but he has certainly annoyed the Indian establishment. Indian government sources have gone ballistic.

Why is AfPak diplomacy finding itself in such disarray? No one will put the blame on Holbrooke who is a gifted diplomat, as Dayton testifies. The problem seems to be three-fold. First, whereas on Yugoslavia the Bill Clinton administration pursued a cold-blooded agenda, the US keeps improvising its AfPak brief and has inevitably ended up confusing the regional protagonists and the Afghans. Maybe there are far too many variables in the Afghan situation, maybe it is the US’s calculated intention to confuse everyone, or maybe it has genuinely confused itself. No one can tell with certainty.

We have now been told that it will only be in December that Barack Obama will revisit the Afghan war and thereafter he will hand down to the world community a newer version of the AfPak policy. Meanwhile, we all sit on the fence marking time.

Second, unlike in the 1990s, the US’s influence is much diminished today but the US diplomats work as if they operate in a unipolar world. The plain truth is that regional powers like India, Iran or China are far from convinced about the US’s AfPak policy. And they can be expected to do their utmost to safeguard their interests, no matter what the US diplomats prescribe as good enough for the region.

Unfortunately, the US doesn’t seem to realize that no regional power – not even Iran – is contesting its leadership role in stabilizing Afghanistan and it can afford to be transparent. At the very least, there is no need to be paranoid.

Third, unlike in the case of Yugoslavia, what can ultimately work is only a robust plan of “Afghanisation”, which means giving primacy to the established government in Kabul and kick-starting an intra-Afghan political process. Baradar’s contacts with Kabul underscore that Afghans have their methods of consensus building.

But from Washington’s perspective, this involves many disagreeable things – giving Karzai a free hand, creating a level playing field for all regional powers that have legitimate interests, and jettisoning the US’s obsessive tendency to hold all the strings in its hands.