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.

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.

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

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

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.