Mattis needed to go further
JAMES MATTIS’ resignation as America’s secretary of defence has unleashed a spate of handwringing, domestically and abroad, by people who fear that his departure will leave Donald Trump to his own volatile and petulantly puerile devices. General Mattis was perceived to be the last adult in the room.
Indeed, the defence secretary’s resignation letter, while its immediate trigger may have been Mr Trump’s unilateral decision to withdraw America’s 2,000 troops from Syria, represents a repudiation of Mr Trump’s world view that rejects sustained global partnerships and multilateralism in favour of transactional relationships that work to the benefit of an inward-focused America.
“While the US remains the indispensable nation in the free world, we cannot protect our interests or serve that role effectively without maintaining strong alliances and showing respect to those allies,” said General Mattis, who underlined the importance of America’s partnership with North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which Mr Trump has often criticised, while espousing his concerns about the intention of China and Russia.
SUFFICIENT SUBSTANCE
While this newspaper may not find full congruence with General Mattis’ perspective on global arrangements, there is sufficient substance in his philosophy, as we read it, to which small, vulnerable countries like Jamaica, dependent on adherence to multilateralism for their protection, can align themselves. For that reason, we welcome the pitch of his remarks.
However unlikely, many others who, in the fear that Mr Trump might thrash the room now that the adults are out, we do not believe that General Mattis, and others like him, who have either voluntarily left, or were forced out of the administration, deserve a free pass.
In the first place, the so-called adults in the room, while they, in some respects, have been restraints on Mr Trump’s worst impulses, were also his enablers. They provided a veneer of respectability and order to a president who enacted policies detrimental to the stability of the world, to which they were profoundly opposed. Yet, they remained quiet – mostly.
NOT FAR ENOUGH
General Mattis may have avoided the diminution ultimately suffered by almost anyone who served Donald Trump and went a good way in rescuing his reputation with the tone and trajectory of his resignation letter. It is not our view, however, that he went far enough.
His should have been a full, unambiguous rebuke of Donald Trump and the dangers, in unadulterated terms, that his presidency and the policies generated therefrom hold for the world. After all, America’s greatness, and its capacity to project power, are not merely about its economic and military might, its NATO alliance or any ability it has to hold Russia and China at bay. It’s beyond leveraging relations with powerful countries.
America’s great strength is that most of the rest of the world, mostly small, vulnerable countries and their people, including Jamaicans, believed in the idea of the United States – in the Jeffersonian ideals of democracy, in its inherent fairness and of the United States as a force for global good. These are the notions and ideals that the Trump presidency has placed at risk. There comes a time when adults have to give their charges all the facts of life.