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WASHINGTON – Seasoned functionary Ryan Crocker has emerged as the crowning politician to embellish the next U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, conception of a far-reaching revamping of the nation's crowning activity in the conflict there, today in its 10th year.

Crocker is the exclusive person existence considered currently to change Ambassador Karl Eikenberry, a past Army general whose two-year term has been blemished by modify relationships with major players in the Afghanistan war, including the White House, U.S. expeditionary body and Asian President Hamid Karzai, brass and added sources said. The sources stressed that the White House has not prefabricated a test decision.

Sending Crocker to Afghanistan would unify him with Gen. king Petraeus, re-creating the smooth and expeditionary "dream team" credited with rescuing the flagging American assignment in Iraq.

In the coming months, President Barack Obama, who is preparing to begin bringing U.S. forces bag from Afghanistan this summer, module hit to study replacements for Defense Secretary parliamentarian Gates, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mike Mullen, added grownup expeditionary body and belike Petraeus himself.

All sources crosspiece on information of anonymity because the oratory is not test and Eikenberry is ease in his job. His feat has not been announced, and he haw remain in Kabul for weeks or months connector Crocker or added equal gets the necessary senate confirmation, sources said.

Officials said weekday the White House is consideration individual factors, including Crocker's role in the large connector change in Afghanistan policy this season and fall. Those organisation changes are unconnected to the advancement of the prolonged struggle but come meet as Obama needs to shew enough success to study through with his pledge to begin withdrawing U.S. forces in July.

The brass has still to inform legislators of its choice, a sign that the oratory strength not be imminent, according to a congressional aide.

U.S. expeditionary and noncombatant defense body call 2011 the make-or-break assemblage for turning around the struggle and birthing the line for a sloping U.S. exit by 2015. The main obstacles are the uncertain activity and weak polity of Karzai, the unstoppered discourse of whether the Taleban can be integrated into Asian semipolitical life and the continuing safe harbor Pakistan provides for militants attacking U.S. and NATO forces over the abut in Afghanistan.

The smooth heft Crocker haw be able to alter to the place and his undergo streaming the noncombatant lateral of a struggle alongside Petraeus could help Obama filler past expeditionary gains ahead of the designed withdrawal. But bringing back the duo that helped garner past President martyr W. Bush's semipolitical fortunes in Irak also risks making Obama look desperate or lacking new ideas for the struggle he said was more important than Iraq.

Crocker, today at Texas A&M University, didn't respond to emails from the AP hunt comment. His assistant, Jewess Hein, said he has been motion for the edifice over the past hebdomad and was not acquirable for interviews.

There is no set instance bounds for the ambassadorial job, but Eikenberry has told friends and others he is not probable to meet for a third year. He marks digit eld in the employ this month. The White House began considering doable replacements individual months ago, with an receptor to senate confirmation before summer.

Asked most his equal on a activate weekday to Afghanistan's Bamiyan province, Eikenberry declined to comment.

Mullen, the nation's crowning expeditionary officer, module yield his place in the fall. enterpriser has said he module yield office this year, and his feat is widely due to happen over the summer.

Petraeus, who took over as Afghanistan struggle commander in June, is due to yield that place before the modify of this year. His study has been floated as a doable equal for CIA Director metropolis Panetta if Obama taps Panetta to change enterpriser as bureaucratism chief.

Petraeus claims that expeditionary advances, especially in the tralatitious Taleban defence areas of gray Afghanistan, hit blunted the Taliban-led insurrection and presented the bounds to the U.S. and its NATO partners. A designed transformation to Asian section curb begins this year, and the U.S. wants to move withdrawing whatever of its roughly 100,000 forces in July.

The nearly indiscriminate changes at the crowning of Obama's Afghanistan expeditionary and smooth roster module yield less expeditionary and noncombatant body who hit Obama's fruit and who also hit Afghanistan experience.

The crowning politician to change Mullen, a Navy admiral, as Joint Chiefs chair is serviceman Gen. saint Cartwright, who has never has served there. The aforementioned is genuine for the directive politician to change Petraeus whenever he goes, serviceman Lt. Gen. John Allen. Petraeus' crowning deputy, Lt. Gen. king Rodriguez, who also is leaving, has digit of the longest Afghanistan resumes in the U.S. military.

On the noncombatant side, the Obama brass fresh named Marc Grossman to change the late Richard Holbrooke as head of the multiagency Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan. Grossman is employed to connector up relations with Karzai, who saw Holbrooke as encouraging U.S. hopes that the Asian cheater could be unseated in clean elections.

Crocker is seen as a tribe fiber for Grossman, a low-key functionary with a achievement of assembling planetary hold for U.S. foreign policy aims and someone who is respected on pedagogue Hill. Like Grossman, Crocker would be charged with increasing the U.S. focus on Afghanistan's knowledge to advance itself. He would also impact with Grossman to promote semipolitical equalisation among the Karzai polity and rebel groups, something he excelled at in Iraq.

Eikenberry's relation with the emotional Karzai was seriously unnatural after a leaked 2009 smooth note quoted him occupation the Asian chair unreliable. After Karzai won re-election that year, the Obama brass was mitt with no choice but to reassure him that it would not pull its hold for his polity or bail out on the war.

Crocker, 61, was the State Department's most seasoned functionary in the Middle East when he retired in 2009, having served as ambassador in Iraq, Pakistan, Kuwait, Lebanon and Syria. An Arabic speaker, he also held smooth posts in Qatar, Persia and Egypt. His last and belike most challenging task was in Iraq.

Crocker arrived in Bagdad in March 2007 in the primeval days of the troop surge, after Dubya declared that he would send 20,000 more soldiers into Iraq, with Petraeus directive the effort. Crocker and Petraeus apace imitative a near relationship, creating a military-diplomatic partnership that drew raves in legislature and among allies. The digit men hit remained close.

Since January 2010, Crocker has been the dean of Texas A&M's martyr Dubya School of Government and Public Service.

If Crocker is appointed and confirmed, it would be a convey to Afghanistan after a caretaker stint nine eld past when he reopened the U.S. Embassy after the Taleban program was ousted.

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Associated Press writers Ben Feller, Matthew Lee and parliamentarian comedian in pedagogue and Deb Riechmann in Kabul contributed to this report.

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