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| IS fighters parade in Mosul, Iraq in June |
General John Allen, 61, has served as special presidential envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter the Islamic State (IS) under US President Barack Obama since September. He previously served for three years as the deputy commander of the US forces in Afghanistan and Iraq.
In an interview with SPIEGEL, Allen uses the Arabic term "Daesh" when referring to IS in order to prevent having to say the word "state".
SPIEGEL: It took more than a decade to halfway stabilize Afghanistan. The situation in Syria seems even worse. When will you be able to say "mission accomplished"?
Allen: I wouldn't put a timeline on it, frankly. This is a difficult moment. The components of instability that we face with Daesh are found widely in the region. It's not just about Daesh, Iraq or Syria. There are broad-based undercurrents of difficulty -- social difficulties, economic difficulties, governance challenges -- that created opportunities for extremism to emerge and the radicalization of populations. So, while we are all interested in dealing with Daesh as the immediate threat, more broadly we're interested in the underlying factors that create these problems. A useful conversation to have is: How can we take action together to eliminate some of these social, ethnic, religious and economic problems that have combined in so many places? There are no short-term solutions. It's going to require concerted action by the community of nations. It's going to require ownership of the problem in the region.
SPIEGEL: President Obama has stated he wants to "ultimately destroy and dismantle" IS. Was it a mistake to set such a maximalist goal that is almost impossible to reach?
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