We should be robustly assisting the Free Syrian Army with equipment and also with training.
If Assad continues to conduct strikes against the Free Syrian Army at will, it would be very difficult for them to have any success against ISIS.
In the early 2009, a campaign plan developed by Petraeus and General McChrystal to defeat the Taliban, they required a minimum force of 40,000. President Obama rejected that recommendation and provided 25 percent less. He also decided he would pull the force out in 12 to 15 months.
If we have the intent to use the military only when needed, then that also becomes, then, therefore, a credible deterrent.
Afghanistan remains an opportunity to deal al Qaeda a vital strategic blow, especially since we have abandoned all operations - including counterterrorism operations - in Iraq.
In Washington, D.C., in 2006, Democrats had long since given up on the war in Iraq in terms of any tangible political support for it. The new factor was the Republicans were beginning to give up as well, and they were truly challenging the strategy and the lack of success.
Senator Clinton is very knowledgeable about national security and is probably going to be strong on defense. I have no doubts whatsoever that if she were president in January '09, she would not act irresponsibly and issue orders to conduct an immediate withdrawal from Iraq, regardless of the consequences, and squander the gains that have been made.
Afghanistan is where much of the al Qaeda journey began. It is the main site where Osama bin Laden, Mullah Omar and their cohort rose to prominence fighting the Soviets in the 1980s. Afghan territory holds special significance to the group, which is committed to retaking it and re-establishing it as the base of a global movement.
Despite the obvious intelligence and security failures that contributed to the attack against the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, the reality is that in one night, an al Qaeda-affiliated group destroyed a diplomatic post, killed a U.S. ambassador and three other Americans, and forced an end to clandestine U.S. activity in the area.
I believe, for a long time, protracted wars test the will of any democracy, to be sure, and people will underwrite a protracted war if they see some progress. But if they don't see progress, and it appears to be futile and useless, then that political support begins to evaporate rather quickly.
Everybody wants to talk about sectarian conflicts of the war in Iraq, but the fact of the matter is, Sunnis have lived with Shias in harmony more in the confines of Iraq, in that land, than they have been in conflict. That's an historical fact.
I remember speaking to a sheik who came back into the political system in late 2008, laid down his arms. His troops became part of the Sons of Iraq, the so-called Sunni Awakening.
By the end of 2008, clearly the Al Qaeda and Sunni insurgency had been relatively stabilized. And in the Al Qaeda's mind, they were defeated.
Very unusual in an insurgency to have absolutely no political agenda other than to return to power. Most insurgents have a political side to them.
Radical Islamists spread from Western Africa through the Middle East, all the way to South Asia to sub-Indian continent.
The Pentagon is actually a 10-story building, five up and five down.
The Pentagon is a series of wedges. So you have - the outer wedge has windows on the outside, and then inside of that, it has windows with an alleyway; then there's another wedge with windows outside, windows inside. And we call them the E Ring, the D Ring, the C Ring.
I have decorated soldiers for heroism before, and it was always such an honor to do it.
Since 1989, we have been deploying on an average of every 18 months.
Only four secretaries of defense served longer than Robert M. Gates. Many others were as dedicated; many sacrificed a great deal. Alone among them all, however, Mr. Gates had the task of turning around two wars that the U.S. was losing.
