Mr. Trump promised to find a replacement for Mr. Mattis soon, and Defense Department officials on Friday suggested a list that includes Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina; Energy Secretary Rick Perry; Senator Tom Cotton, Republican of Arkansas; the Navy secretary, Richard V. Spencer; the deputy defense secretary, Patrick Shanahan; and Jack Keane, the retired four-star general who was vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Whoever Mr. Trump selects will have to guide the Defense Department’s men and women through a new inward-looking way of conducting military policy, one that seeks to avoid messy international entanglements, particularly those in war zones.
Syria
At MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Fla., Gen. Joseph L. Votel, the head of United States Central Command, was on the phone last weekend with Pentagon leaders, trying to figure out how to talk Mr. Trump out of his decision to withdraw American troops from Syria.
His commander in chief was, essentially, ordering him to abandon the fighting force — the Syrian Kurds — that had been the most effective in working with the American military in the fight against the Islamic State. The move would also cede influence in Syria to Russia and Iran.
By Monday, aides said that General Votel appeared to have accepted that Mr. Trump was not going to budge. During a staff meeting, an officer asked General Votel if American troops were coming home, according to a Defense Department official with knowledge of the meeting. General Votel gave a grim smile and did not answer.
The next day — Tuesday — General Votel called a handful of officers into his office and told them that the president had decided to withdraw all troops from Syria. In Washington, Mr. Trump’s top advisers were still trying to talk the president out of the decision, but Central Command had its marching orders, first among them to inform the Kurds.
On Tuesday night in Tampa, General Votel called his Kurdish friend Mazlum Kobane. For years, General Votel has held weekly conversations with Mr. Kobane — the commander in chief of the Kurdish group, known as the Syrian Democratic Forces — a man the Americans had come to trust for always keeping his word.
from Just News Update http://bit.ly/2GALOw0
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