There is no military solution to the challenges of Syria.

I am not a politician, and I will never be, and I say that with absolute conviction.

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.

Reconciliation is what takes place, of course, at higher levels. President Karzai has been very clear about the red lines for reconciliation, accept the constitution, lay down their weapons, cut their ties with al Qaeda and essentially become productive or at least participating members of society in that regard.

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

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.

The Islamic State fighters in Mosul are dead men walking and I think they increasingly know it.