Thread: Why Mattis Had to Go

Why Mattis Had to Go

The defense secretary could no longer serve a president who no longer thinks he needs to listen to anybody.

By BLAKE HOUNSHELL
December 20, 2018

James Mattis is not an imposing man. At 5-foot-9, with a slight build, he doesn’t have the physical presence you might expect from someone whose nickname is “Mad Dog.” He doesn’t have, say, H.R. McMaster’s bull neck or booming voice. Yet Mattis loomed large over U.S. national security policy, such as it is, under this presidency—so much so that his long-expected but still-sudden resignation Thursday had Washington reporters competing to see who could dial up the most hair-raising quotes warning of catastrophe ahead.

(My contribution: One former top official who speaks regularly to the White House offered only a one-word reaction over email: “Alarming.”)

When I met Mattis for the first time, at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, the retired Marine general was still fuming over his treatment by the Barack Obama administration—he was fired as Central Command chief, basically, for urging a more aggressive Iran policy—and though our conversation wasn’t on the record, it was clear he was somebody who wasn’t to be trifled with.

Now, he’s aiming his considerable capacity for outrage at a different occupant of the Oval Office, with the stakes far higher given that the president today is, well, Donald Trump.

Every journalist in Washington knew Mattis opposed Trump on the biggest foreign policy issues of the day, be it pushing back against a revanchist Russia, managing the messy conflicts in the broader Middle East, or handling a surging China. He made it known around town that he was running the Pentagon only to protect it, if not the world, from the president, and for nearly two years he was more or less able to prevent an outright crisis.

The question was always when Mattis would reach his breaking point—when the president’s isolationist instincts, impulsive decision-making and attempts to use the military as a political weapon would push him over the edge.

It wasn’t, apparently, Trump’s deployment of U.S. troops to the Mexican border in a transparent effort to swing the November midterms that did it; Mattis went along with that. It wasn’t the president’s repeated snipes at NATO, the trans-Atlantic alliance that has underpinned American national security for seven decades; nor was it his assiduous adoption of Kremlin talking points or his periodic eruptions at U.S. allies—it was basically all of that, Mattis made clear in his extraordinary resignation letter, which contains not a scintilla of praise for his boss and outlines several major points of disagreement.

“Because you have the right to have a Secretary of Defense whose views are better aligned with yours,” Mattis wrote, “I believe it is right for me to step down from my position.”

Obviously, Mattis couldn’t abide Trump’s sudden and apparently unilateral decision to pull U.S. troops out of Syria, where they were supporting predominantly Kurdish forces in fighting against ISIS and keeping an eye on an encroaching Iran. Word soon leaked out, too, that Trump plans to yank a big chunk of U.S. forces from Afghanistan, a flailing war effort the president has long questioned as pointless.

It’s not that these moves are indefensible—one can easily imagine a President Hillary Clinton determining that the juice wasn’t worth the squeeze and ordering U.S. forces home.

But in a normal administration, a big move like that would have taken place only after endless rounds of discussions at multiple levels of governments, arguments between agencies, and consultations with allies. There would be plans for every possible contingency, and a carefully coordinated PR rollout. Trump seems to have just ordered it done at the speed of a tweet, and it’s clear his administration hasn’t worked through the dangers that accompany any withdrawal of troops from a war zone.

On Wednesday, the administration hastily announced a conference call to brief the press on the president’s Syria decision, then struggled to explain what it was and when or how it would happen. The Pentagon pointed reporters to the White House; the White House told reporters to talk to the Pentagon. It was a level of chaos I hadn’t seen in a decade of covering U.S. foreign policy.

So it isn’t surprising that Mattis left—with his advice so conspicuously spurned, he might have realized he could no longer be effective. For years, he had ignored or slow-walked Trump’s wilder ideas, such as his reported order to assassinate Syrian President Bashar Assad, but this time the president doesn’t appear to have consulted him at all—and reportedly rejected his desperate final attempt to change his mind over Syria. Any Cabinet secretary would have resigned.

So what now?

Each occupant of the Oval Office claims ever-vaster powers in foreign policy, and Congress has steadily ceded its oversight powers as the complexity of conflicts, and the speed and might of the U.S. military, has increased. So those looking to Capitol Hill for a public intervention may end up disappointed. After all, Republican senators have wished away their differences with Trump on foreign policy for many months, occasionally rebuking him but generally doing little to rein him in.

Still, the criticism from lawmakers seems to have reached a new decibel level by Thursday night. The abrupt nature of the Syria pullout coupled with Mattis’ departure may finally spur them to do more than express mild disappointment.

One strong signal: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who studiously avoids making his differences with the president public, said he was “distressed” by the resignation and urged Trump to choose a replacement who shares Mattis’ views.

But if even the Mad Dog couldn’t sway a willful president who feels utterly unbound by the usual rules of foreign policymaking, why should we think his successor would have any more success?

https://www.politico.com/magazine/st...-policy-223418

He made it known around town that he was running the Pentagon only to protect it, if not the world, from the president, and for nearly two years he was more or less able to prevent an outright crisis.

That is so bad, Mattis. How you could go around DC undermining this remarkable President like that is hard to imagine. I've heard of some low-life things out of our military over the years, but this out of a 4 Star General against a President who brought you out of forced semi-retirement to run the US Department of Defense, the largest, most powerful military force in the world, while you run around town like a jealous girl in the typing pool undermining your boss, really takes the cake.

It also hangs a dark cloud over our military raising the question, how many of you are there in our military?

Donald J. Trump
‏Verified account @realDonaldTrump
6m6 minutes ago

I am pleased to announce that our very talented Deputy Secretary of Defense, Patrick Shanahan, will assume the title of Acting Secretary of Defense starting January 1, 2019. Patrick has a long list of accomplishments while serving as Deputy, & previously Boeing. He will be great!

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump?...Ctwgr%5Eauthor

DANGER ZONE

Jim Mattis Was the Only Thing Keeping Trump’s Insane Clown Posse in Check

Steady, thoughtful, and respected, Mattis was America’s insurance policy against Trump’s idiocy. If you’re not nervous, you’re not paying attention.

Rick Wilson

12.21.18 9:17 AM ET

OPINION


Photo Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast

Thursday's decision by Jim Mattis to leave the stifling, rapidly collapsing confines of Donald Trump’s insane clown posse administration was always inevitable, but that hardly makes the psychological impact of his departure any less traumatic.

In a week with an endless series of body blows to Trump, this one is going to leave a mark. Even with a crashing stock market, the Mueller investigation closing in on Trump’s allies with brutal, inexorable efficiency, his family “charity” exposed as a particularly slimy slush fund, a looming government shutdown, and his failure to deliver his infamous wall to his marks, the Mattis resignation is the Quivering Palm Death Touch.

]His extraordinary departure in protest of Trump’s policies and personality is absolutely unprecedented. Mattis naturally objects to the reckless Syria pullout plan, but also to the president’s wholesale abandonment of our traditional allies who have made not only the U.S. but the world safer. As I write this, Washington and the world are reeling, and in deep shock. Even usually Trump-compliant Stockholm Syndrome Republicans in the House and Senate are issuing statements bordering on panic, all while the Trump noise machine warms up to attack Mattis as a Soros shill, a closeted liberal, and a traitor to the Maximum Leader.[/COLOR]

• NOTHING REALLY MATTIS
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  Mattis’ Message to Trump Is Basically ‘F*** This’
  
  
  Scott Bixby
  
  
  
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Jim Mattis was a talisman for the Washington and international foreign-policy communities, a point of smarts and stability, a ground-wire to short out Trump’s capricious impulses before they could damage America’s interests and values. While never straying from the chain of command, Mattis knew how to work the process, fight back behind closed doors, and maintain relationships with allies and friends around the world.

Even the Trump White House, a hive of the most morally vacant and cowardly bootlicks ever assembled, found themselves relying on Mattis, even if they never trusted him. If Trump ever realizes how much his own White House staff counted on the Marine general turned SECDEF to control his impulsive defense and foreign-policy decisions, he’ll have a Twitter stroke.

I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve had Republican representatives and senators whisper, nearly sotto voce, “Well, at least Mattis won’t let things get too crazy.” “At least Mattis knows what he’s doing.” Mattis was utterly real in an administration of phony tough guys, faux patriots, fantasy-based economic trade-war fetishists, and Trump’s broad array of lying shitbirds.

“Mattis was and is a man of honor who did his best to steer Donald Trump away from disaster, and found himself hated for it.”

[COLOR=rgba(2, 20, 31, 0.85)]He was all substance and no flash. He was Mad Dog, the warrior monk, deeply read and supremely tough, and a man so clearly imbued with the core values that have made our military both fearsome and deeply respected at home and abroad. Unlike Trump’s low-rent “but muh troops” rah-rah, Jim Mattis truly loves the men and women in the armed services. He understands what orders to send American men and women into harm’s way imply. He knows how to precisely apply the war-fighting discipline and strategic vision that had made him one of the eminent military leaders of our generation.[/COLOR]

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Many members who serve on the foreign policy, defense, and intelligence committees still kept a channel open to the Mattis Pentagon; it was an island of stability and staff quality. Mattis resisted staffing the DOD with the usual Trumpian flotsam of used-car salesmen, mouth-breathing racist trash, hustlers, grifters, serial liars, hobo-organ harvesters, and alt-right kooks. Mattis ran a normal Republican DOD as hermetically as he could.

Just on the edge of Trump’s constant bleating about “his generals” was the sour odor of jealousy. It’s not hard to understand why.

Low, weak men like Donald Trump may pretend to praise people like Mattis, but always secretly revile those who possess virtues and values they lack. Trump resented Mattis for his accomplishments, his judgment, and his knowledge. Donald Trump, a man of the most shallow intellect and indifferent ability, faced a man who has forgotten more about war, diplomacy, and strategy that Trump has ever learned.

Mattis raised young Marines from every ethnic background into warriors fighting for a bigger idea than race or ethnicity; Trump is the most overt racist to hold the American presidency since Woodrow Wilson. Trump believes the troops exist for performance-art-like border-wall creation and parades to honor the Maximum Donald; Mattis knows they’re putting their lives on the line for the nation and the Constitution, and he honors them with missions that make America safer, not his ego bigger.

]Trump knows on some deep, basal level that he’s a figure of mockery and cordial (at best) dislike by leaders of America’s traditional allies, and is seen as an easy mark by our adversaries. Trump saw how often Mattis had to clean up messes President Best Brain made in China, North Korea, Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, and across Europe. Worse, he saw that the leaders of those nations respected Mattis in a way he couldn’t beg, borrow, or steal.

One supreme irony of Jim Mattis working for Donald Trump was apparent to me from the beginning. Mattis wasn’t just a better man on every axis; Trump was the kind of man Jim Mattis spent his career training to defeat; the authoritarians and oppressors of this world, the big-bore despots and the small-bore warlords. The type of people Trump either admires or lets himself be manipulated by—Putin, Erdogan, Duterte, Kim Jong Un, and others—are the kind of men Mattis sees as obvious adversaries of the United States. Mattis sees the risks of failed states, while Trump seems determined to create one. Mattis understands American institutions; Trump monomaniacally craves royalty, a literal Imperial Presidency.

]Mattis was and is a man of honor who did his best to steer Donald Trump away from disaster, and found himself hated for it. Mattis understood the importance and power of the U.S. military as an institution under civilian control, and as a repository of core American values. It must have been galling to him to serve this cowardly, venal, weak, and capricious man, but it was one more mission in a lifetime of service.

The departure of Jim Mattis from his role as secretary of defense is one more dangerous moment in a constellation of dangerous moments for this country, and this presidency. If you’re not nervous yet, you’re not paying attention.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/jim-mattis-was-the-only-thing-keeping-trumps-insane-clown-posse-in-check