Obama's Islamic State War Czar Stepping Down

[Purveyor]

Sept 22, 2015 12:10 PM EDT
By Josh Rogin & Eli Lake

President Barack Obama is about to lose the man he hand-picked to build the war effort against the Islamic State. Retired General John Allen will be stepping down as envoy to the global coalition this fall, and the White House is searching for a replacement to be the face of America’s flailing effort to destroy the jihadist group in Syria and Iraq.

Allen will leave government service in the coming weeks, four administration officials told us. State Department officials said they were not ready to officially announce Allen’s departure, but he has notified his superiors he will give up his job in early November, after serving just over one year. His chief of staff, Karin von Hippel, will also depart, to join a British think tank.

The timing of Allen’s departure could not be worse for the Obama administration. The incoming Marine Corps Commandant, Lieutenant General Robert Neller, testified last month that the war is at a “stalemate.” Last week, the head of the U.S. Central Command, General Lloyd Austin, testified that of the 54 Syrian rebels trained and equipped by the U.S. military, only “4 or 5” were still in the fight. And now the Pentagon is investigating allegations by dozens of intelligence analysts that their reporting on the progress in the war effort was altered before being given to top officials.

U.S. officials familiar with Allen's decision say he has been frustrated with White House micromanagement of the war and its failure to provide adequate resources to the fight. He unsuccessfully tried to convince the administration to allow U.S. tactical air control teams to deploy on the ground to help pick targets for air strikes in Iraq. Allen also tried several times to convince the White House to agree to Turkish demands for a civilian protection zone in Syria, to no avail. Nonetheless, administration officials stress that Allen's decision to leave his post was motivated mainly by the health of his wife, who suffers from an auto-immune disorder.

"John Allen has put his heart and soul into trying to make the president's strategy work,” said Derek Harvey, a former senior U.S. military intelligence official who worked with Allen at U.S. Central Command. “I have sympathy for the hard task he was given because I do not believe the president's team was fully on board and he was never empowered to bring the leadership necessary to achieve the mission."

more...

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-09-22/obama-s-islamic-state-war-czar-stepping-down

[Rex]

1. You cannot force people to be meat puppets if you do no occupy their land.

And even then it can be a hell of a battle. We LOST. Time to pack it in...we LOST. I guess just like Vietnam...America will swallow this horrible pill too and pretend it never happened. Hanging Saddam was such a great idea...NOT...but hey, generals can lie to Congress they just can't win any wars anymore.

What do we waste those trillions of military dollars on again? Oh right, contractors...has nothing to do with war anymore.

Obama is stuck in an impossible place to get out of imo. Dubya fucked things up that badly.

[TwilightGardener]

2. The sympathetic view of Allen from Josh Rogin, McCain's Mouthpiece.

Allen failed. Another Neocon Clown Fail. Inherent Resolve actually LOST ground against ISIS under his stewardship. I have no idea why Obama keeps offering him "special envoy" jobs (his first was as assistant to Kerry in the Israel/Palestine deal) after his Jill Kelley flirty email disgrace that ended his military career.

[GreatGazoo]

3. this is in reaction to Russia's full entry into Syria?

ISIS is supported by Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey. Assad is supported by Russia and Iran. Russia just deployed tanks, troops and drones to the interior of Syria and made a deal with Israel to avoid exchanging fire. Some analysts say this mean that Israel loses access to attack Hezbollah inside northern Syria but that remains to be seen.

Russia is expecting their deployment will heat things up before a peak is reached. They expect Chechen rebels to show up in Syria. Meanwhile Saudi Arabia wants Syria's ground water and Turkey is cutting off water from the north. Lots of fingers in this pie now.

Many developments in the past week:

Russian boots on the ground:
http://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-deployment-syria-putin%E2%80%99s-middle-east-game-changer

Israel makes deal with Russia:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/09/21/us-mideast-crisis-russia-israel-idUSKCN0RL10K20150921

Saudi water crisis:
http://www.vox.com/2015/9/14/9323379/saudi-arabia-squandered-its-groundwater-and-agriculture-collapsed

[TwilightGardener]

4. Not necessarily. Might be more of a reaction to the ISIS effort going generally nowhere,

plus the Pentagon IG investigation into intel analyses being tampered with higher up (Allen was the biggest trumpeter of happy proclamations of progress--James Clapper also probably involved).