General says U.S. could be condemned to fight ISIS 'forever'

Retired Marine Corps General John Allen.
(Image credit: Allison Shelley/Getty Images)

If the United States fails to work effectively with Mideast powers in the war against ISIS, "then we're going to be condemned to fight forever," retired U.S. Gen. John Allen said to CNN on Thursday. Allen was selected by President Obama to lead the ISIS fight in 2014 and stepped down from the position in late October of this year.

"Nobody understands this region better than the people in this region," Allen argued, making it necessary to work "closely with them to try to get at these underlying conditions" which allow for ISIS' success to avoid perpetual warfare.

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Bonnie Kristian

Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.