Trump and Obama sack him. General Mattis talks about his positions in a new book

Mohamed Minshawi-Washington

In 300 pages, former Defense Secretary James Mattis offers his 40-year military experience in the US Marine Corps, from a young soldier to the post of defense secretary.

The book, released this morning in the United States, called "Call Sign Chaos," did not contain the details and secrets that many experts and commentators waited for the manner and manner in which US President Donald Trump dealt with his military commanders, and the nature of the relationship that brought him to Mattis to be forced to resign. In a famous speech in December 2018.

General Mattis only mentioned President Trump once in the introduction to the book, but Washington experts believe that his focus in the pages of the book on the specifications of the leadership clearly indicates the lack of President Trump.

Silence and criticism
Matisse said he would not talk about "an American president while in office," while he has often criticized former President Barack Obama, whom he saw as lacking "strategic leadership specifications."

Matisse criticized President Obama, especially after he sacked him on the background of their differences in the way to deal with the Iranian file. While Obama wanted to open a secret channel of negotiation with Iran, leading to the signing of a nuclear deal with Iran in 2015, Matisse, as the chief of staff, pressed for strikes against Iran.

Matisse also accused Obama and Vice President Joseph Biden of "ignoring reality," prompting them to make political decisions to withdraw from Iraq, allowing al-Qaeda to return stronger and more ambitious in the form of IS.

Mattis said that while "Obama announced that the war in Iraq was over, this country was in fact heading for more violence, and that was all foreseeable and could have been avoided."

Matisse also criticized President Obama's decision not to attack Syria militarily, after pledging disastrous consequences for the Assad regime once it used chemical weapons.

Trump, who sacked Matisse as defense secretary after the US president made a unilateral decision to withdraw his troops from Syria, was not directly criticized in the book.

Mattis said he told Trump that he would not become "the defeated secretary of state before IS," after which he resigned and revealed - in a famous speech - the depth of differences between him and Trump.

Mattis attributed the avoidance of attacking President Trump in his book to have the latter as "commander in chief of the armed forces," saying that as a military man "can not criticize his leaders in public."

On the other hand, the former US official criticized what he considered the Obama administration's miscalculation of the repercussions of the Arab Spring, and its misconception that it stands on the right side of history by supporting the removal of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

He also talked about situations he suffered during the Arab Spring, where he stated that the Egyptian army chief of staff, General Sami Annan, contacted him while he was in Washington when the revolution broke out in January 25, 2011 in Egypt, and Matisse then headed the chief of staff of the Central Military Command.

Matisse went to a farewell meeting with General Annan at the nearby Andrews base in the state of Maryland, Annan told him "I would like to assure you, a military soldier, that our soldiers will not fire on our Egyptian people." Matisse defended the performance of the Egyptian army and attacked the Muslim Brotherhood. He pointed out that it is natural that the Egyptian army aligned with the wishes of 20 million Egyptian demonstrators took to the street demanding an end to the rule of the radical Muslim Brotherhood, as he put it.

Highlight messages
Matisse's new book carried two key messages: the importance of Washington's foreign alliances and the gravity of the Allies' neglect.

Mattis specifically referred to the state of America's NATO allies, saying that "when he went to fight in Afghanistan, there were thousands of soldiers from the armies of allied countries such as Canada, Turkey, Britain and others fighting with us shoulder to shoulder even though the terrorists only attacked American targets in 11 "They did not attack any targets in those countries, and this is the nature of strong alliances."

Mattis stressed that the leader should show a strategic sophistication that maintains respect for the nations that were at our side in times of danger, stressing - in a veiled criticism of Trump's policy - that countries with allies are flourishing, and have no decay.

In his book, Matisse has not been exposed to the most important crises in the US policy towards the Gulf region, whether those related to confronting Iran and the consequences of withdrawal from the nuclear agreement, or the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, or the Gulf crisis and the siege of Qatar.