The job of the leader is to get the big ideas right.

Political progress will only take place if sufficient security exists.

If you look at casualties, you find countries that had much higher loss rates per capita than the US. Denmark comes to mind, the United Kingdom, they have suffered heavy losses at various points, the Germans as well.

The president and I sat down in the Oval Office, and he expressed very clearly that what he wants from me is my best professional military advice.

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.

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

President Obama has said that our aspirations should be realistic. We are not going to turn one of the poorest countries in the world, that was plunged into 30 years of war, into an advanced, industrialized, Western-style democracy. What we want to achieve is Afghanistan's capacity to secure and govern itself.