But my Arabic is pretty good. It's good enough to have conversations with people, to understand what they say, to understand what they're feeling.

You don't build a new power plant in the United States overnight. It takes years to build.

I don't believe Iran is a suicide state.

The United States is the most powerful nation on Earth and it just can't walk away from the Middle East and central Asia and the Horn of Africa.

Certainly our goal is to leave Iraq, but we can't leave Iraq with our forces until we know that the Iraqi security forces are capable and efficient enough to defend the sovereignty of the nation.

And over time, I think, as Iraqi security capacity builds, you'll see American and coalition presence there decline.

But the key shift in focus will be from counter-insurgency operations to more and more cooperation with Iraqi security forces and to building Iraqi security capacity.