The former top American commander in Afghanistan has been tapped to serve as special presidential envoy for the American-led coalition to stop the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
John R. Allen, who retired from the Marine Corps last year as a four-star general, “will help build and sustain the coalition so it can operate across multiple lines of effort in order to degrade and ultimately destroy” the Islamic State, Secretary of State John Kerry said in a statement this weekend.
“Gen. Allen is a patriot and a remarkable leader,” Kerry said. “His extraordinary career in the military speaks for itself. Whether as the top commander of NATO’s ISAF forces in Afghanistan during a critical period from 2011-2013, or as a deputy commander in Anbar [Province, Iraq] during the Sunni awakening, or as a thinker, scholar, and teacher at the U.S. Naval Academy.”
And Allen has a big fan in a very high place: “It was not until Marine Gen. John R. Allen took command of the war [in Afghanistan] in July 2011 that [President] Obama found a general with whom he clicked,” the Washington Post wrote last year. “Allen demonstrated more flexibility on troop numbers and shifts in strategy than his predecessors. Obama’s aides, in turn, were far more willing to listen to Allen’s views on how the war needed to be waged.”
Allen was being considered to be named head of all U.S. forces in Europe in 2012 when he became collateral damage in the adultery scandal of CIA Director and former Army Gen. David Petraeus. News coverage over the allegations against Petraeus — which led to his resignation from the CIA — expanded to delve into the hundreds of emails Allen exchanged with a Tampa, Fla., area woman who was well-connected to the military community, Jill Kelley.
Allen was later cleared of wrongdoing. He was on track to become head of supreme allied commander of NATO forces in Europe last year when his wife, Kathy, fell seriously ill and he resigned from the Marines. “I’ve just got to get her well,” the told the Post in an interview.
The retired general is a D.C.-area native, having been born in Fairfax County and attending the private Flint Hill School there. He is an alumnus of the U.S. Naval Academy and later returned to Annapolis to serve as its commandant of midshipmen.
