Around 20 years ago now, my wife and I were having a conversation about who we would like to see play a game of chess against one another…those from heads of government around the world?
I had spent years mainly in the Middle East, Far East, and a bit less time in the Balkan countries.
My wife had centered as a journalist covering economics and global affairs not only from Wall St but also from the Greater Middle East, and covering the wars there too.
We’ve had that conversation many times since.
The answer has always been short. Love them or loathe them, you still have to appreciate their cunning and guile.
The only difference between these chess masters and those in the chess world are when the pieces get swiped off of the board…these ones are swiped off of the face of the earth. Body parts are blown apart and often lie in the street until they stink. The stench that stays with me even today.
My answer 20 years ago was a game of chess between the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat versus the Afghan leader Hamid Karzai.
If one or the other had died, then one or the other versus Putin, the autocratic leader and organized crime boss of Russia.
Well, today Arafat is dead, Karzai is no longer the President of Afghanistan, taken over by Ashraf Ghani, and later, as we all know…the Taliban.
Meeting Karzai inside his palace around 2008 for a news interview. From early 2004-to late 09, I would meet with him on 5 separate occasions with a small news team there to interview him.
A PLO/PA card signed by Arafat and given to me in 2002 during a news team meeting with him after the 36-day siege during the Second Intifada. In all, over an 18 month period of the Intifada, I’d meet him around 12 times.
However, as Karzai is still alive and amazingly living in Afghanistan under the rule of the Taliban, my chess game would now be between Karzai and Putin.
Notice that not one Western leader is in the shout for a game!
Arafat was small but tough as nails. He played the world leaders like a fiddle. Karzai was also small but tough. He too played the world leaders like a fiddle. Both having to court the US, UK, EU, Russia, China, India, Saudi Arabia and others…while keeping all of these representatives happy with the situation inside their territory. Oh, and Putin is small but tough too, and even today is still playing the world’s leaders like a fiddle.
I once watched Karzai take meeting after meeting in just a few hours of waiting for our turn, between the head of NATO’s military inside Afghanistan, the US Ambassador, the Chinese Ambassador, and then the Indian Ambassador, before squeezing in an interview with the TV news team that I was working with as their security adviser.
Just imagine having to juggle diplomacy with all of these individuals in order to keep the $$$$$ and the security flowing!
As many suggested otherwise, I knew that this man was no American puppet. Indeed, no one pulled his strings.
So, will it be in my lifetime, or will it be left to someone else in decades to come to have the discussion with their wife about just who they would like to see play chess against one another…only this time involving a Western leader?
Bob Shepherd 