The Foreign Service Journal - January/February 2018

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2018 35 FOCUS ON U.S. GLOBAL LEADERSHIP The 74-member international coalition illustrates American leadership in action. BY PAME LA QUANRUD Pamela Quanrud recently retired from the Foreign Service after a 30-year career. Her last assignment was as day-to-day manager of the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS in the office of Special Presidential Envoy Brett McGurk from 2015 to 2017. Overseas, she has served in Bonn, Moscow and Warsaw, where she was deputy chief of mission. She was also chief of staff to Deputy Secretary of State William J. Burns; principal deputy executive secretary to Secretary of State Hill- ary Rodham Clinton; and a deputy assistant secretary in the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs, among other Foreign Service assignments. S ometimes a truth spoken resonates so organically that it prompts a collective sigh of relief from its listeners—relief that someone has emerged from the crowd to suggest a path forward, allowing us all to shift our footing from collective outrage to collective action. That is the essence of the story behind U.S. leadership of the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS. During the first six months of 2014, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) made a dramatic debut on the world stage by capturing a wide swath of Syria and Iraq. It rolled seemingly The Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS: A Success Story U.S.DEPARTMENTOFSTATE U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson delivers opening remarks at the meeting of the Ministers of the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS at the Department of State in Washington, D.C., on March 22, 2017.