WASHINGTON: Much fighting remains, and more casualties and more dark days are ahead, warns US Secretary of Defence Robert Gates while CIA chief Leon Panetta warns of “lone wolves” determined to kill as many Americans as possible.

Gen Brent Scowcroft, a national security adviser to presidents Gerald Ford and George H. W. Bush, says that America can no longer tell other nations “You are either with us or against us”.

Zbigniew Brzezinski, who advised President Jimmy Carter on national security, believes US foreign policy is isolating America from the rest of the world.

The observations, made separately at two different places on Tuesday, reflect a new soul-searching in the United States where government officials, think-tank experts and media pundits are trying to find the best way to combat religious extremism emanating from the Muslim world.

The Obama administration hopes that the search will lead to a solution that allows them to reduce US military involvement abroad, as they promised in their election campaign, without hurting US interests.

Secretary Gates, who spoke in Kabul after a meeting with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, saw “grounds for optimism” in the Afghan-led, Afghan-owned initiative to woo the Taliban militants.

Mr Panetta, who was addressing a seminar at the University of Oklahoma, observed that an improved relationship with Pakistan was helping the United States find and kill top Al Qaeda leaders.

The CIA chief said that the terrorist outfits were now “on the run” due to extreme pressure exerted on them in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Mr Panetta observed that operations conducted in Pakistan’s tribal areas and US drone attacks had led to the deaths of more than half of the terrorist group’s top 20 leaders and hundreds of militants.

In Afghanistan and Pakistan, Mr Panetta said, America’s goal was to “degrade the Taliban” in order to allow both countries to stabilise.

The question that most concerned Mr Panetta was whether the US would be able to ultimately transfer power to the Afghan people.

The answer, he said, lay in whether the Karzai administration would succeed in building effective government, which he defined as the capacity to protect the people “at the provincial level”.