"Marine Corps Gen. John Allen, the top commander in Afghanistan, is expected to leave his post early next year and take over the U.S. European Command, officials said.
Allen has spent much of his tumultuous year in Afghanistan helping to negotiate a long-term security agreement with the Afghan government and overseeing the initial drawdown of U.S. forces from the country." Washpost
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General Allen is a personal friend of BHO. He has had the job of beginning the "shutdown" of the US/NATO intervention in Afghanistan. He is accomplishing that goal. Afghanistan is useless as a "strategic" partner of the US. The country remains what it has been since its creation by Britain and Russia as a buffer state between their empires. It was and continues to be more of a geographical expression than anything else. The importation of the falsely labelled COIN "success" from Iraq to Afghanistan as technique proved to be a theoretically clever think tank generated flop. A COIN campaign in Afghanistan was always going to be too long, too expensive and too bloody. BHO belatedly sees that he was "rolled" by Petraeus et al in the great Afghanistan debates several years back. Allen will leave so that he is not "stained" by the increasing obviousness of failure.
The next commander at the "roof of the world" will have the job of continuing to kill hard core terrorists jihadis while gradually distancing the US from whatever government there is.
Rodriguez was one of the group of West Pointers who "conspired" to get rid of McKiernan and replace him as apostles of COIN. I doubt that Rodriguez will be the next "victim" to sit in McKiernan's chair. IMO the next commander in Afghanistan will be a CT flag officer like one of the US Navy SEAL derived admirals. Either that will happen or some two or three star Army general will be the choice.
BTW, the president/commander in chief recently put his arm around his friend Allen in public after a meeting at the WH. That should never happen. In 1942, FDR once called Marshall, "George" when they were alone in the Oval Office. Marshall asked him not to do that again. He said that such intimacy was inappropriate to the command relationship. He was correct. pl
