country although they would be enormous and to start with the cover of time magazine for starters and then think about security interests and then think about the region, and what it could do to the region if extremists were able to take over all or part of this country again after what presumably would be a very bloody civil war in which different countries in the region would take sides. and, again, the prospect is, i think, is pretty frightening. if we succeed, on the other hand, obviously, we are, again, succeeding in a region that has implications and links to security issues throughout the world. if afghanistan can become the central asian round about, to use president karzai s term, to where it can be the new silk road, think of the implications for that. recalling that, of course, ga e
president bush told people before leaving office privately that succeeding here in afghanistan would be vastly more difficult than even iraq and here we are still fighting in what general petraeus himself said five years ago would be the longest campaign in the long war. the question now for the american public is whether it has the stomach and the will to do what it takes to succeed here and whether it has the stomach for what could happen here if the u.s. and its allies fail. for afghanistan, that s all for today. i ll be back next week from washington. if it s sunday, it s meet the press. - including many of our friends and neighbors; teachers and coworkers; heroes and leaders. twenty years ago, the americans with disabilities act guaranteed every person the right to live, work, and participate fully in the american experience.
war if you do not have the backing of the american people? it s not just american people. it s the citizens of all of the 47 or so troop contributing nations and of other nations to are contributing money and not forces. they have to have a sense that we can achieve the very important objectives that we have here. let s remember why we are here. we re here so that afghanistan does not once again become a sanctuary for trans national extremists the way it was when al qaeda planned the 9/11 attacks. before he moved on to u.s. germany and other flight schools. and of course other attacks have emanated from here or the region because it s a regional issue as well. you talk about unity of effort but the national security team under this administration has not had that. i wonder what you think the impact is, the residual impact is of general mcchrystal being fired because his speaking publicly aired some real differences within the national
30 years of war began afghanistan was one of the five poorest countries in the world, that my sense was that this would likely be the longest campaign in what we then called the long war. a couple of additional questions. i would like to ask you about iraq again. do you consider this a durable success? well, again, i think the final chapter for iraq is certainly still to be written and of course there s an immediate pressing issue there which is the formation of the government. i think they can come together. i think that what will end up happening is it won t be a question of just who will be the president, prime minister and speaker of the council of representatives. rather, there will be power sharing agreements that will be officially or unofficially made that will enable selection of the key leaders. i think that s what s holding the process up. very important of course to get that government in place and hopefully to ensure that it is like the previous government for all its
pakistan has fought so hard and taken significant kablcasualtie over the last 18 months. there are areas that they have not yet dealt with. north waziristan is one of those. they had operations in south waziristan and then there are some of the other agencies that they know. let me point out one other point if i could. what s interesting is the taliban leads from the rear, as we would say. the taliban leads from pakistan and rank and file is just catching onto this. we actually see discussions among them and chatter among them and conversation wondering where their senior leaders are and wondering why mulla omar hasn t stepped foot back in afghanistan or heard from in months and months. the senior leaders don t come in and share hardship and risk with troopers on the ground. they send messages. they do it by cell phone or what