DATE: 2010-12-01
SOURCE: Embassy Kabul
SUBJECT: EMERGENCY MEETING
1. (S/NF) At approximately 2300 hours, Senior Civilian Representative (SCR) Frank Ruggiero was summoned to the Presidential palace in Kabul. SCR was escorted through a hidden passageway to the banquet hall, where, to his astonishment, he found President Hamid Karzai chatting amiably with Taliban leader Mullah Omar and several members of the Pakistani ISI. At center was a large table laden with kebabs, savory flatbreads, and seasoned rice, and it was obvious that everyone had been smoking hashish for several hours.
2. (S/NF) Mullah Omar said that after weeks of soul-searching he had decided that it was time to “let bygones be bygones,” and that there was no issue that Taliban, GIRoA, and USG could not resolve through simple compromise and friendly games such as rock-paper-scissors. “After all,” he said, “it’s just religion.”
3. (S/NF) At this point, the President’s brother Ahmed Wali Karzai (AWK) entered and presented SCR with a cashier’s check for USD 400,000,000,000 to cover various military and diplomatic costs incurred in Afghanistan since 2001, plus an eighteen-per-cent gratuity.
4. (S/NF) SCR then attempted to congratulate the newly minted allies, but found himself rebuffed, as Omar and Karzai insisted that their truce would not have been possible without the wisdom, tact, and unfailing discretion of the US diplomatic corps. Official announcement scheduled for spring, 2011, so as to insure the best possible weather at Camp David. (END DISPATCH.) ♦
DATE: 2010-10-21
SOURCE: Embassy Tel Aviv
SUBJECT: TWO-STATE SOLUTION
1. (S/NF) Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak visited post to review new State Department-sponsored peace initiative. After carefully reviewing the one-page, six-hundred-word document, Barak removed his reading glasses and whispered, “By God, you’ve done it. You’ve actually done it.” He continued in a quavering voice, “And who could have guessed it was so simple!”
2. Within two hours, Barak was joined by Benjamin Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas, who both reacted with the same combination of relief and euphoria, and Abbas estimated chances of success at somewhere between “one hundred per cent and one million per cent.” Netanyahu was similarly effusive, praising the State Department’s “seemingly preternatural ability” to anticipate and resolve “every infinitesimal detail” of the byzantine conflict without necessitating any territorial, economic, or sociological concessions from either side.
3. (S/NF) Although Abbas and Netanyahu were eager to make a joint statement immediately, Ambassador successfully convinced them to delay the announcement until spring, 2011, so as to insure the best possible weather at Camp David. (END DISPATCH.) ♦...MORE
HT: PE HUB
