The official announcement isn’t expected for some time, but State Department officials are confirming that retired Gen. John Allen, who has held the position of ISIS War Czar for the last year, will resign in November because of his growing frustration with the White House’s policies.
Officials said that Gen. Allen had been pushing the White House to escalate the war on numerous levels, in particularly on the Turkish call to establish a “safe zone” out of northern Syria and the deployment of more ground troops to pick targets for airstrikes.
Allen had only been intended to hold the position for six months at any rate, and had agreed to stay on because the war wasn’t going very well. When the formal announcement does come, it is likely to emphasize this, and present the departure as less about policy than about timing.
During the early weeks of the war, Allen’s responsibility was to serve as sort of a roving ambassador from the war to other countries, trying to court more nations into joining the conflict. After that initial phase, however, he chiefly was used as a public mouthpiece by the White House to reassure media outlets that the war was going, if not ideally, well enough. It appears that was a lie that simply couldn’t be maintained indefinitely.
