Trump lost his last general and U.S. foreign policy may never be the same
Secretary of Defense Gen. James Mattis has been credited with convincing President Trump that torture isn’t a great idea, running “damage control” with European allies spooked by Trump’s criticism of NATO, and pushing for diplomacy with North Korea — rather than airstrikes.
On Thursday he became the first defense secretary in American history to resign in protest over a presidential decision, according to presidential historian Michael Beschloss. And there’s no clear replacement in sight.
The news sent ripples of fear through Washington’s defense and foreign policy circles, among both Democrats and Republicans, and raised questions about whether a truly qualified candidate could be convinced to accept the task of running Trump’s Pentagon. Mattis plans to officially step down on Feb. 28.
“What serious person is going to accept that job, and come work for a president who changes his mind like people change their clothes?” said Robert Deitz, who held senior positions in the CIA and National Security Agency under former president George W. Bush. “Nobody comes to mind, mostly because they’d be unlikely to accept.”
Trump’s shock decision Wednesday to pull U.S. troops from Syria , which prompted Mattis’ abrupt resignation, is exactly the kind of handbrake U-turn in U.S. foreign policy likely to become even more frequent once Mattis’s influence fades, former senior national security officials told VICE News.
“I’m extremely concerned,” said Michael Carpenter, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense and foreign policy adviser to former Vice President Joe Biden. “His departure means we’ll have a president whose irrational impulses go even more unchecked.”
“FUCKING KILL” ASSAD
In 2017, an enraged Trump phoned Mattis and told him to “fucking kill” Syrian dictator Bashar Assad, following Assad’s reported use of chemical weapons, according to veteran D.C. journalist Bob Woodward’s book, "Fear."
“Let’s fucking kill him!” Trump said. “Let’s go in. Let’s kill the fucking lot of them.”
Mattis played along with Trump, then hung up.
“We’re not going to do any of that,” Mattis muttered to an aide, before drawing up plans for a more limited airstrike that Trump later agreed to. (Trump and Mattis have both denied this ever happened.)
Mattis was the last of three military generals installed at the top of Trump’s administration once widely seen as providing a check on Trump, alongside former National Security Adviser Gen. H.R. McMaster, and outgoing chief of staff Gen. John Kelly — dubbed by Trump as “my generals.”
“We were led to believe at the beginning of the administration that Trump had this enormous respect for these retired generals, and that he’d defer to them on matters of security,” said Brett Bruen, U.S. Diplomat who served as director of global engagement in Obama’s White House. “But the message is that Trump is unable to listen to the sound voice of military experience.”
Mattis’s exit results from Trump’s “disturbing vision” of the world as a place where America’s allies are expendable, said Ryan Goodman, a former special counsel at the defense department.
“Secretary Mattis's letter of resignation is the canary in the coalmine,” said Goodman. “Mattis has told the nation that the president is no longer capable of making the types of reasonable decisions that keep our country safe.”
Trump’s decision to withdraw from Syria, in particular, throws two sets of American allies under the bus, former diplomats said: European nations who have fought in Syria, notably France and the U.K., and also local Kurdish forces, who have suffered heavy losses taking ground from ISIS fighters.
“We’re abandoning our European allies and the Kurds with no notice,” said Hady Amr, who was a top State Department official under former president Barack Obama. “They essentially found out about it through the internet. That’s not the respect with which we should be treating our allies.”
Trump’s wild swings appear likely to become even more rash as legal pressure increases from mounting criminal investigations into his presidency, former government officials said. The White House did not immediately respond to request for comment on Trump's foreign policy.
REALITY SHOW MILITARY
Several former top government officials worried openly that Mattis’s departure may enable Trump to play politics with the armed forces.
Trump has displayed a willingness to use the U.S. military like a prop in a reality show, former officials said, citing his decision to deploy thousands of troops to the U.S.-Mexico border to deter a caravan of unarmed migrants right before November’s midterm election, and his plan to roll heavy armor down the streets of Washington, D.C., in a military parade.
Multiple sources invoked the 1997 movie "Wag the Dog," a comedy about a president who concocts a phony war in Albania to distract the public from a sex scandal right before an election.
National security experts worried openly about how Trump will react, in Mattis’s absence, if special counsel Robert Mueller delivers damning findings about Trump’s ties to Russia or other crimes.
“The legal noose is tightening around his neck, and the absence of a key check on his foreign policy instincts means we’re in for very dangerous time,” said Deitz. “The potential for some 'Wag the Dog' scenario is much greater now than before we knew that Mattis was resigning.”
Some fear Trump will use the military to divert attention from the Mueller probe or his other legal problems.
“I think he instinctively knows that if he finds the right cause for military intervention, he could put the Mueller news cycle behind him and create new facts on the ground that could rally people behind him,” Carpenter said.
Trump himself once accused Obama of preparing to start a war with Iran to win re-election, a worrying sign that he sees foreign adventurism as a way to juice a president’s domestic ratings, former officials said.
“Donald Trump’s poor leadership continues to steer our country into chaos,” Rep. Eric Swalwell, a Democrat on the House intelligence committee, told VICE News. “Without General Mattis’s counsel, we are at risk of further alienating our allies and getting too close to the worst actors in the world.”
https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/xwj3bq/trump-lost-his-last-general-and-us-foreign-policy-may-never-be-the-same
Trump rants while 'all alone' in White House on Christmas Eve
It's Christmas in America: The President is home alone in the White House, ranting at his foes inside and outside; an administration lurching deeper into crisis; stock markets are in free fall and the government is paralyzed by a partial shutdown.
Donald Trump is spending the festive season as he did much of the year, sparking chaos and raising concerns in the capital and around the world about his impulsive behavior and boiling with frustration as he barges right up to the limits on his power.
One reason for his fury: A favorite barometer of his own success has been stripped away by days of savage losses on the markets. In a shortened Christmas Eve session, the Dow Jones Industrial Average tumbled more than 600 points after a bizarre attempt by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Sunday to calm investors by consulting with the CEOs of top banks backfired. Losses were compounded by another of Trump's Twitter attacks on the Federal Reserve -- following revelations that he has asked if he can legally fire the independent central bank's chairman, Jerome Powell.
The Dow fell 2.91% and the S&P 500 dipped 2.71% in the biggest Christmas Eve declines in the two indices' history. The slump came after the stocks last week had their worst week since the Great Recession a decade ago, and the last time the market fell so far in December was in 1931, during the Great Depression.
Trump turns to Twitter while "all alone" in the White House
While many Americans gathered with their families and with his vacation to the "Winter White House" at Mar-a-Lago iced by the shutdown, the President spent the day at the White House blasting critics -- including Democrats who have refused his demands for $5 billion in funding for his border wall in a standoff that shuttered the government at midnight on Friday."I am all alone (poor me) in the White House waiting for the Democrats to come back and make a deal on desperately needed Border Security," Trump wrote in what may have been a tongue in cheek tone in his 10th tweet of the day.
Trump was due to be rejoined for Christmas Day by first lady Melania Trump, who had already decamped to Florida before the shutdown took hold.
The President also lashed out Brett McGurk, his special envoy for eradicating ISIS, who followed Defense Secretary James Mattis by resigning in protest at Trump's hurriedly announced Syria withdrawal. He hit out at "Little Bob Corker," the outgoing Tennessee senator who has criticized him over Syria and the shutdown. He also insisted he did like allies -- but said many took advantage of the US "both in 'Military Protection and Trade...' "
A senior administration official told CNN's Jim Sciutto that national security decision-making has "basically stopped working" and decisions are "made on a whim on phone calls." The official added the Syria withdrawal was "a complete reversal" and it was done "without deliberation, no consideration of risks."
American allies and partners are "shocked and totally bewildered" and the Syrian Democratic Forces "don't believe this is happening," the official said.
It all added up to a feeling of a White House that is hurtling out of control and a President who is becoming increasingly emotional and vexed at a time when he faces mounting legal and political pressure from special counsel Robert Mueller. He is also days away from a new era of punishing Democratic oversight when the new Congress convenes in early January.
The loss of Mattis -- who was seen around the world as a check on Trump's erratic national security decision-making -- has raised anxiety about his presidency to previously unmatched levels.
Of course, many Trump supporters voted for disruption and to rattle the Washington establishment when they sent him to the White House so are likely to be less concerned than Washington insiders about the febrile Christmas mood.
More at https://edition.cnn.com/2018/12/24/politics/trump-christmas-chaos/index.html