Retired Marine Corps Gen. James Mattis, who had been forced out of the Pentagon over his outspoken opposition to the Obama administration’s nuclear deal with Iran, has emerged as the leading candidate to head the Defense Department as President-elect Donald Trump moves to fill out his Cabinet.
Revered within military circles as a tough, no-nonsense battlefield commander, the former four-star general would bring a distinctive and outspoken figure to one of the administration’s most high-profile posts.
Gen. Mattis was reportedly not the president-elect’s first pick to lead the Pentagon. On Sunday, retired Army Gen. Jack Keane told NPR he was offered the job by Mr. Trump, but declined and volunteered the names of Gen. Mattis and Gen. David Petraeus, President Obama’s top commander in Iraq and Afghanistan before serving as CIA director.
Aside from his battlefield prowess, Gen. Mattis is also well known inside and outside the Pentagon as an astute strategist and an avid military historian, earning him the nickname “the warrior monk.” Gen. Mattis, who went by the radio call sign “Chaos” famously issued mandatory reading lists to all Marines under his command before heading off on combat deployments. Titles on the book lists ran the gamut, from technical Marine Corps manuals on counterinsurgency to detailed histories on the second Persian invasion of ancient Greece to John Hersey’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel “A Bell for Adano.”
Such practices run contrary to those of the president-elect, who has admitted he has little time to read history or literature.
Mr. Trump is also reportedly considering former national security adviser Stephen Hadley and retired U.S. Southern Command chief Marine Corps Gen. John Kelly. Newly named White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus floated former U.S. Southern Command chief Gen. Mike Kelly as a dark horse nominee for the Pentagon slot.
If nominated, Gen. Mattis would require a congressional waiver from federal law that bars retired military officials for seven years from taking civilian government posts. He retired from the Marine Corps in May 2013.
The potential appointment of Gen. Mattis to defense secretary has been viewed by a number of national security observers as a possible counterweight to retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, Mr. Trump’s pick for national security adviser. Mr. Flynn, who campaigned heavily for Mr. Trump, has been criticized for his controversial comments on Islam and his ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s regime.
But Gen. Mattis has his own record of provocative comments. When asked about his experience in Afghanistan as commander of the 7th Marine Regiment, he said: “Actually, it’s a lot of fun to fight. Apparently no humanity has remained in Afghanistan. So it’s a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them.”
And his military career was eventually cut short due to his outspoken stance against the Obama White House’s nuclear deal with Iran, leading to his forced retirement from Central Command in 2013.
As a civilian, Gen. Mattis continued to rail against the Iran accord as an “imperfect” agreement that delays but does not eliminate Tehran’s efforts to become a nuclear power. Mr. Trump has also harshly criticized the accord.
“Iran will cheat that’s the sense you get when reading” the terms of the nuclear agreement, Gen. Mattis said during an April speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, adding Iran is “not a nation-state, but a revolutionary cause intent on mayhem.”
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