Ryan Crocker

The Obama surge strategy in Afghanistan remained unproven in spring 2011 as President Obama made high-profile shifts in his national-security team, including an appointment of Petraeus to replace the current CIA Director Leon Panetta, who is expected to supplant departing Defense Secretary Robert Gates. Crocker was expected to be part of that shuffle.

A career diplomat who is fluent in Arabic, Crocker served as U.S. ambassador to Iraq for two years and had a famously strong relationship with Petraeus, who replaced McChrystal in summer 2010 as U.S. Afghan commander. Crocker and Petraeus worked to coordinate their Iraq efforts and present a united front, and told subordinates that they wouldn't tolerate infighting between civilian and military officials.

Throughout his tenure as ambassador to Iraq, Crocker maintained that the U.S. should eschew strict timetables for withdrawing from the country, arguing that progress was delicate. "There is still a ways to go. And clearly, still a continuing need for our security support," he said on the eve of his departure in early 2009. "If it were to be a precipitous withdrawal, that could be very dangerous."

Crocker has been lauded as a savvy diplomat and one of the State Department's most experienced Middle East hands. He served as U.S. ambassador to Pakistan for over two years, and has also held ambassadorships to Syria, Kuwait, and Lebanon. Upon leaving his post in Iraq, Crocker said he planned to retire to his home of Washington state. Though he traveled a lot as the child of an Air Force family, he was born in Spokane, Wash.

In His Own Words

"As hard as Iraq was - and remains - Afghanistan is harder," he said.

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