Jim Mattis Archives - Iran News Daily

Mattis leaving Pentagon, disappointed of fulfilling his hopes in West Asia

reporter 1222 — Sun, 30 Dec 2018 07:45:30 +0000

Donald Trump, the US President, has recently announced that his Defense Secretary, Jim Mattis, would leave the Pentagon at the end of February. This announcement came amid the removal of US troops from Syria.

Mattis signed this order in spite of his opposition to Trump’s decision, and then he wrote his resignation letter! Thus Mattis is going to leave Pentagon as a disappointed and defeated politician.

As reported by Sputnik, “on 19 December, Trump declared that the United States had defeated Daesh in Syria, adding that the terrorist group was the only reason that US troops were fighting in the Middle Eastern country during his presidency.

About 2,000 US troops are currently deployed in Syria as part of a campaign to defeat Daesh.” This is while the US President’s claims are in contrast with the American authorities’ support for the Takfiri groups in Syria and other countries in the region.

In any case, Mattis resigned immediately after Trump’s announcement about the withdrawal of American troops from Syria. In a letter to United States President, he announced his disagreement with Trump on various subjects. He said he would step down so that Trump could have a defense secretary “whose views are better aligned with yours.”

“Because you have the right to have a Secretary of Defense whose views are better aligned with yours on these and other subjects,” Mattis said in his resignation letter, “I believe it is right for me to step down from my position.”

As for Trump, he didn’t resist Mattis’ resignation at all, but welcomed this decision!

“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,” Trump tweeted. This will definitely create challenges among the two Democratic and Republican senators with the White House.

The fact is, contrary to the wishes of the American media and the US officials, who are trying to limit the disagreement between Trump and Mattis to a personal dispute, the resignation of the US Secretary of Defense from his post, is a clear indication of the strategic defeat of the United States in Syria, Afghanistan, and the West Asia region.

In other words, the important point here is the strategic defeat of the United States in the region and not the personal debates between Mattis and Trump. The next significant point that should be taken into consideration is the “future of the Pentagon” after Mattis’ resignation. After Mattis, the Department of Defense will continue to operate as one of the centers of conspiracy against other nations. However, Mattis’ resignation will create anarchy in the underlying structures of the US Department of Defense.

This disorder and tactical disagreement will also show itself in the regional approach and foreign policy of the United States. But our experience shows that as time passes, the US policies will be more and more defeated in the region. The Pentagon has also been weakened as a result. Meanwhile, the attempts of the US Department of Defense and some Western media, especially Americans, and the leaders of the two Democratic and Republican parties, has failed to prevent this trend.

Obviously, at this period, the Pentagon has become one of the symbols of regional and international failure in the United States. The withdrawal of American troops from Syria and the resignation of Mattis has left him a failed general, just like his predecessors. This miserable general, as a defeated figure, will have a lot to say about the differences between the White House and the Pentagon and the US failure in West Asia, and his words will be interesting at that time.

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US Allies in Asia-Pacific Region Rattled after Mattis Quits

reporter 1222 — Fri, 21 Dec 2018 13:07:22 +0000

The abrupt resignation of US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis sparked concern among Asia-Pacific allies who credit the retired general with building trust and tempering isolationist impulses, regional officials and analysts said on Friday.

The region – which includes strong US allies Japan, South Korea and Australia – hosts some of the world’s most volatile flashpoints, with high tension on the Korean peninsula and China’s militarization of the South China Sea causing friction.

Mattis, who embraced America’s traditional alliances, said he was quitting after falling out with President Donald Trump over foreign policy, including surprise decisions this week to pull troops from Syria and start planning a drawdown in Afghanistan, Reuters reported.

“He has generally been referred to as one of the adults in the Trump administration,” Australian government Senator Jim Molan told The Australian newspaper.

He said his departure was concerning because it introduced “another extreme variable” into US decision making.

Mattis has been a vocal critic of China’s increasing presence in the South China Sea but he worked to ensure tensions did not boil over.

“He’s been the point of continuity and the gatekeeper in the administration that they’ve relied on most to temper the instincts of Trump, which are much more, I think, isolationist and clearly highly skeptical … about alliance commitments,” said foreign policy and security analyst Euan Graham, executive director of La Trobe Asia at Australia’s La Trobe University.

Mattis’ departure also robs Australia, without a US ambassador since 2016, of a key ally in the Trump administration.

“Australia has always had the ear of Mattis,” a US-based diplomatic source told Reuters.

Australia has had roughly 800 troops in the Middle East since 2014, mostly based in Iraq, as part of coalition efforts to combat the Daesh (also ISIL) group.

About 300 troops are based in Afghanistan, where they have had a presence since not long after the war began 17 years ago.

Trump announced on Wednesday that US troops in Syria would be withdrawn, a decision that upended US policy in the region.

A US official said on Thursday Trump was planning to withdraw at least 5,000 of the 14,000 US troops in Afghanistan. Mattis had advocated for a strong US military presence to bolster diplomatic peace efforts there.

Adam Mount, defense analyst at the Federation of American Scientists, said Mattis was a steady hand on North Korea and was instrumental in preventing a war.

“Mattis was bailing water out of an alliance being buffeted by an erratic president, an advancing North Korea, and an increasingly assertive China,” Mount said.

“His work kept the alliance afloat but major questions will have to be resolved to keep it strong,” he said.

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US must stay in Iran’s nuclear deal, Defense Secretary Mattis tells senators

reporter 1222 — Wed, 04 Oct 2017 05:32:49 +0000

US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis says the administration of President Donald Trump must consider remaining a party to Iran’s nuclear deal with the world powers, as the international accord serves US national interest.

Mattis’ remarks at a Tuesday Senate hearing comes in sharp contrast with Trump’s assessment that the nuclear agreement is an “embarrassment” to the US.

Asked if he believed the nuclear deal is in the US national interest, Mattis replied, “Yes, senator, I do.”

“If we can confirm that Iran is living by the agreement, if we can determine that this is in our best interest, then surely we should stay with it,” he said.

“I believe at this point in time, absent indication to the contrary, it is something that the president should consider staying with,” Mattis pointed out.

US President Donald Trump has desperately sought a pretext to scrap or weaken the 2015 nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), and get rid of the limits it imposes on the US ability to pursue more hostile policies against Iran.

US President Donald Trump boards airplane at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland to depart for Puerto Rico on October 3, 2017. (Photo by AFP)

The US stance on the JCPOA comes as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has repeatedly verified Iran’s adherence to the terms of the nuclear agreement since January 2016, when it took effect.

All other parties to the deal, along with the entire international community, have thrown their weight behind the accord and verified Iran’s full commitment to its side of the bargain.

On Friday, Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif urged Europe to defy US sanctions if Trump’s administration abandons the JCPOA.

The US Republican president faces an October 15 deadline for certifying that Iran is complying with the deal. Such certification is needed by US law every 90 days in order for the Congress to continue to withhold nuclear-related sanctions against Iran, itself a US commitment under the JCPOA.

The Trump administration has twice so far certified Iran’s compliance with the deal, but if he refuses to do that for a third time, then the Republican-controlled Congress will have 60 days to decide whether to re-impose sanctions waived under the deal. That would let Congress effectively decide whether to kill the deal.

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