Diplomat Is Expected to Receive Afghan Post

WASHINGTON — President Obama will most likely soon nominate the veteran diplomat Ryan C. Crocker to be the next United States ambassador to Afghanistan, an administration official said Tuesday.

Ryan C. Crocker at a Senate committee hearing last July.

The move would pair Mr. Crocker, a former United States ambassador to Iraq, with Gen. David H. Petraeus, the Afghanistan war commander he worked with closely while the two men were in Iraq during the Bush administration. It would also begin what is expected to be a year of changes in Mr. Obama’s war command. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, are both expected to leave their posts soon.

Mr. Crocker would succeed Karl W. Eikenberry, a retired Army lieutenant general and the current ambassador, who also plans to leave soon, the administration official said. General Eikenberry has had a distant relationship with President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan ever since a leaked diplomatic cable surfaced in which General Eikenberry criticized Mr. Karzai as an inadequate strategic partner for the United States.

Mr. Crocker would be taking over the embassy in Afghanistan just as the Obama administration is expected to begin withdrawing American troops from the country, a process that is expected to take several years.

The pending appointment of Mr. Crocker was first reported by The Associated Press. The administration official said a final decision had not yet been made.

Mr. Crocker has also held senior diplomatic posts in Pakistan, Lebanon, Syria and Egypt. He took over as the American ambassador to Iraq in 2007, just as President George W. Bush’s troop increase was getting under way, and he worked closely with General Petraeus in the ensuing years.

Mr. Crocker is the dean of the George Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University.