Ambassador Crocker: No "grand bargain" with Taliban in Afghanistan

(CBS News) Dismantling the Taliban in Afghanistan will be a gradual process and a "grand bargain" that quickly ends hostilities is unlikely, the outgoing U.S. ambassador Ryan Crocker told CBS News Friday.

Speaking to CBS Evening News anchor Scott Pelley, the longtime diplomat said that the most important talks won't be between the Taliban and the U.S. but rather the Taliban and the Afghan government, which continues to grow in its ability to provide services and lead security operations as the U.S. prepares to withdraw its remaining troops.

Crocker admitted that U.S. troops may remain in the country beyond 2014, but said "I couldn't begin to tell you" exactly what that scenario would look like, as the U.S. and Afghanistan still have to reach a security agreement that would lay it out.

Below, watch the interview and profile of Crocker as it aired, plus a web-only excerpt:

[UForgotPoland]

This country didn't learn ANYTHING from Vietnam did it? We don't want to be in Afghanistan and the locals don't want us to be there either, so why not leave? The reason is because the top brass doesn't want to give up a strategic locations in central Asia.

[nohater]

thought going into afghanistan was to get bin laden dead or alive. well, bin laden was succesfully assassinated so we should withdraw from afghanistan. the taliban was a secondary target because they were thought to be hiding bin laden but it turned out to be our so called allies, the pakistanis. obama just signed a 10 year agreement with afghanistan to basically love and protect it. hillary even called karzai, afghanistan, our ally yet karzai said publicly he would side with pakistan in a war with the USA.

[hypnotoad72]

I presume you're referring to this:

http://news.yahoo.com/karzai-afghanistan-pakistan-us-pak-war-073514754.html

But you also assume Karzai hadn't been upset with the US before Obama was elected. And that article also adds in a lot of context that you are - either accidentally or deliberately - avoiding. Such as:

"He said his country was indebted to Pakistan for taking in millions of Afghan refugees over the years and stressed that Kabul would not allow any nation — be it the U.S., India, Russia, China or anyone else — to dictate its policies.

"'Anybody that attacks Pakistan, Afghanistan will stand with Pakistan,' he said. 'Afghanistan will never betray its brother.'"

[robert1129]

If the Taliban is truly our enemy then we will never defeat it. If we could, we would have done it within the 10 years we have been there.

[hypnotoad72]

ToolMangler1 -

True.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4756962/

Bush wanted his revenge -- that's not to say Saddam was a real slimeball, but a sufficient case had not been made, and when it started to look as if there was no "imminent threat", the reason for the war changed to become "liberating the Iraqi people". Since then, there's been the nasty scandal at Abu Ghraib... which didn't help matters...