David Howell Petraeus

Iraq has gone from being on the brink to being on the mend, and it clearly has some big advantages.

There has, indeed, been very substantial progress in Iraq over the past year - violence is down by 80 percent, civilian deaths by about the same, and so on.

First and foremost is to not allow the reestablishment, if you will, of an extremist sanctuary that can export the kind of terror that ended up with terrorists taking down the World Trade Center and plowing into the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania. That\'s the point: We started this war because the Sept. 11 attack came from this area. And we do not fight alone, but with some 40 allies who share that view.

Fighting in cities is a totally different endeavor than obviously fighting out in the open.

The question is always how you get the number of troops needed. They do not have to be coalition forces. We also have to expand the training program for the Afghan National Army and the national police, in particular. and Defense Secretary Robert Gates has already announced support for a significant increase in the Afghan army.

We cleared many of their towns and cities and rural areas of al-Qaida Iraq and other insurgents.

Pakistan are very keen to carry out the operations themselves. And there\'s significant effort on the part of the US and other countries to provide assistance that can enable Pakistan to do just that.

I did a week-long assessment in 2005 at (then Defense Secretary Donald) Rumsfeld\'s request. Following our return, I told him that Afghanistan was going to be the longest campaign of what we then termed \'the long war.\'

There [in Afghanistan] is also a growing insurgency threat from al-Qaida, the Taliban and other extremist elements, some of which comes from the tribal areas of Pakistan, as well as from the Northwest Frontier province and Baluchistan.

The first official statements of President Asif Ali Zardari\'s new government have been firm and robust. Pakistan is obviously a renewed democracy.

Over the last few years they have done a superb job in their fight against al-Qaida. As you may recall, our embassy in Jedda (in Saudi Arabia) was overrun some four years ago and a number of foreign workers went home because of violence against them.

I will not ever run for political office, I can assure you of that.

The Sunni Arabs began to realize that they had made a huge mistake by not voting in the election of 2005 and by not being part of the new Iraq. They had reasons for this: They were effected by the disestablishment of the military and by de-Baathification (the dismantling of Saddam Hussein\'s party) in winter 2007-2007. They increasingly recognized that their future lay in being part of the solution rather than a continuing part of the problem.

Afghanistan has other enormous challenges as well, including a political system that is still very much developing, although there has been some progress in the past several years.

The task [in Afghanistan] is to reduce civilian casualties while still not hesitating to respond to enemies who are trying to kill our soldiers.

Progress in Iraq has always been about teams of people and teams of teams - and ultimately about young men and women, Iraqi as well as people from the coalition.

There are some ideas that will translate from Iraq to Afghanistan and there are many that will not. The first lesson of counterinsurgency, in fact, is that every situation is truly unique, has its own context, its own specific set of factors - and you have to understand that context in enormous detail to be able to craft a sound and comprehensive approach.

When you enlisted into the armed forces you swore to support and defend a Constitution that did not yet fully apply to you. You chose to endure the same sacrifices as your fellow comrades in arms to preserve the freedom of a land that was not yet fully yours. You accepted that you might have to pay the ultimate price on behalf of a nation to which you did not fully belong. Now, you will officially become citizens of the United States, a country to which each of you has already borne true faith and allegiance in your hearts and your deeds.

In Afghanistan you are not rebuilding, you are building. There is very limited infrastructure and extreme terrain, with deserts in the south and mountains so high in some areas that helicopters don\'t even fly well at a certain altitude because the air becomes so thin. The country has a serious problem of illiteracy, especially after so many years of war and Taliban rule.

Don\'t forget Yemen, where there are also extremist elements, as we saw recently.

US forces have been increased [in Afghanistan ] from some 21,000 to about 31,000 over the past two years and a number of coalition countries have also increased their forces, there still are not sufficient troops.

Even the Interior Ministry in Riyadh was hit. Since then, the Saudis have employed a very intelligent and comprehensive approach to counter al-Qaida, including precise operations based on good intelligence, changes in their corrections facilities, superb strategic communications programs and a host of other initiatives - all of which, together, have helped Saudi Arabia achieve impressive results in their fight against extremists.

I think Putin wants to recreate as much of the Soviet Union as he can through a variety of different means. He\'s invaded parts of Georgia, took Crimea, southeastern Ukraine, bases in other countries.

We obviously don\'t want to cause problems for the Afghan government, President Hamid Karzai and the Afghan people. In fact, we want them to support our efforts on their behalf and not see us as unwelcome occupiers.

There is no military solution to the challenges of Syria.

ISIS is on its way to defeat but terrorism threat persists.

I am neither a pessimist nor an optimist. I am a realist, and the reality in Iraq is that it has been very hard and it continues to be hard.

Al-Qaida in particular remains dangerous, and there [in Iraq] is some residual militia and special group presence. There are still between 20 and 30 attacks per day, still periodic car bombs and still loss of innocent civilians.

Money can be a very important form of \'ammunition,\' although we should never forget that when you\'re being shot at the most important ammunition is real ammunition.

Let\'s remember that the reason we are there is that we have vital interests in Afghanistan, hugely important national interests, as do the other countries involved.