One Year Into ISIS Fight, Anti-ISIS Envoy Steps Down
“More than a year after publicly pressing President Barack Obama to ‘destroy’ the Islamic State with swift and decisive American military intervention in Iraq and Syria, retired Gen. John Allen reportedly will step down from the special-envoy job created to do just that,” Defense One reports.
“With the ear of the president in intimate Oval Office meetings, Allen convinced Obama to get into the fight. The general warned it would be a years-long battle against the powerful ISIS ideology, but the swift and surgical strikes for which he once advocated have had questionable results. Allen’s resignation comes as the ISIS war continues to produce mixed headlines ranging from territory being regained by U.S.-led coalition forces, yet seemingly unending U.S. airstrikes having limited impact on the group’s ability to resupply and recruit young fighters to its ranks and its ideology.”
“First seen as the leader of the ISIS effort, Allen quickly faded from spotlight as he went to work building the coalition… Allen never shied from public attention, but was not a war general in the vein of Gens. Norman Schwarzkopf or David Petraeus. The war’s top commander remains U.S. Central Command’s Gen. Lloyd Austin, in Tampa, Fla, who rarely appears in public or speaks to the media about his wartime command. Mostly, Allen continued quietly as a warrior-diplomat working in the Middle East.”