Obama : US is not winning in Afghanistan

Admit that the U.S. is not winning in Afghanistan, President Barack Obama has opened the door to a reconciliation process, where his troops could reach out to moderate elements of the Taliban, much as it did with Sunni militias in Iraq.

In an interview with New York Times, when asked if the U.S. was winning in Afghanistan - a war Obama effectively adopted as his own last month by ordering an extra 17,000 soldiers sent there, he flatly answered "No"

Obama pointed to the success of peeling Iraqi insurgents away from the more hard core elements of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, a strategy that many credit as much as the increase in U.S. forces to turn the war around in the last two years.

In a 35-minute interview aboard Air Force One on Friday, said the Times, Obama discusses the challenges that his young administration.