Afghanistan is going to be here a long time, and what's critical is that Afghanistan's relationship with its neighbors are, to the maximum extent they can be, constructive and operationally useful.

And across Afghanistan, every single day, Afghan soldiers, Afghan police and ISAF troops are serving shoulder-to-shoulder in some very difficult situations. And our engagement with them, our shoulder-to-shoulder relationship with them, our conduct of operations with them every single day defines the real relationship.

There is a direct line relationship between what happened in Afghanistan in the work up to 11 September 2001 and what we're doing in Afghanistan today.

Relationship Quotes