by Jim Mattis
And there, amid poverty and with scant hope for betterment, resentment on the “Arab street” toward their rulers had built to a breaking point. In 2010, one in every three Arab youths was unemployed. After decades of bad governance, the vast majority faced a bleak future, and in this digital age, they knew they were missing out.
And then suddenly, like a torpedo out of the dark sea at night hitting the side of a ship, the Middle East was convulsed by popular uprisings. They were to shake the foundations of our relationships with every country in the region. In Tunisia, on the North African coast, a fruit seller burned himself to death. He told his wife that for his entire life he had been deprived of human dignity. Television transmitted his despairing self-immolation to half a billion Arabs in the winter of 2011. Soon after, a near total breakdown of the social contract between Arab governments and their people swept across the Middle East. Every day, I looked at maps showing the rapid-fire spread of the protests. It was like a match thrown into a pool of gasoline. In the Western press, we read about the “Arab Spring,” implying that the riots would result in the overthrow of autocrats and democracy would flower.
After a rebellion, however, power tends to flow to those most organized, not automatically to the most idealistic. Many Arabs wanted democracy. But the revolt was against unjust and unresponsive governments more than it was a pell-mell rush to democracy and inclusive government. I was certain it was unrealistic to believe that, in a region lacking democratic traditions or civil society institutions, the path to liberal democracy could be swift or free of violence. The French Revolution unleashed six years of terror and trial by the guillotine, ending with the rise of the Napoleonic militaristic state. During World War I, the Russians rebelled against czarist rule, but that ultimately ushered in Stalin’s totalitarianism and the deaths of millions. Rebellions, no matter how idealistic in origin, can as often as not produce chaos that often leads to tyranny.
Secretary Gates signaled to me at CENTCOM to continue engaging, encouraging me to keep in close contact with my counterparts in the region. He was wary about the consequences of the uprisings, and I shared his concern about what the new order would look like. Democracy was not preordained to emerge from what was unfolding. I didn’t have a crystal ball, but a quick glance at history reminded me that every society has its own carrying capacity for making change. I was concerned that if traditional Arab societies proved unable to assimilate sudden political change, something worse would erupt.
In determining how to deal with a hostile and powerful England in 1807, President Jefferson wrote, “What is good in this case cannot be effected. We have, therefore, only to find out what will be least bad.” That struck me as sound advice during the Arab Spring.
As it remains the traditional center of Arab learning and culture, how Egypt went would be critical to the region and to our interests. In February 2011, massive protests erupted in Cairo against President Hosni Mubarak, who had ruled for thirty years and had steadfastly supported our policies. But he and his regime were now the focus of widespread discontent and protests.
It seemed to me that we should now be measured in our approach. In Egypt, I thought we should use quiet diplomacy to urge inclusive government. Our government was divided on how to support the Egyptian people without throwing Mubarak under the bus. But in early February, President Obama came out vocally against Mubarak, insisting that in Egypt, “we were on the right side of history.” Having read a bit of history and found that events, good and bad, had been “written” by both good and evil characters, I put little stock in the idea that history books yet to be written would somehow give yearning Arabs what they fervently desired today.
During the tumultuous occupation of Tahrir Square, in Cairo, in January 2011, General Sami Anan, commander of the Egyptian armed forces, called me one evening. He was in Washington but had to return to Egypt. His commercial flight from New York City was leaving in four hours. I met him at Andrews Air Force Base on a gusty, chilly night. We spoke just before I put him on a military plane to get him to JFK Airport on time. “Thank you,” he said. “I promise you, military to military, that my soldiers will not fire upon their fellow Egyptians.” He was true to his word. There was violence in the street, but the Egyptian military stood aside and Mubarak was removed from power in a bloodless coup.
The political situation now dictated outcomes. For decades, Mubarak had permitted only one opposition party, the Muslim Brotherhood, thus strengthening his hold on the government, since it was either him or the radical Brothers. Their disciplined organization enabled them to surge to power in the aftermath of what was a leaderless revolution.
In my Cairo meetings with prominent Egyptians in and out of power, they were furious with the Brotherhood policies, which included anti-Christian decrees and the sanctioning of marriage for nine-year-old girls. The Brotherhood rapidly lost favor among the people. In the largest public demonstrations in world history, twenty million Egyptians took to the streets and conducted what amounted to a national plebiscite. Within a year, the Egyptian Army had shouldered the Brotherhood out of power, and, in an imperfect election, its military commander was elected president.
Understandably, a military-dominated Egyptian government fell short of our ideals. But had the military not stepped in in response to twenty million Egyptians demanding the removal of the Muslim Brothers, the specter of an implosion loomed large. Yet the Muslim Brotherhood’s values made them our enduring adversary, because they were ultimately more restrictive of the human rights of the Egyptian people, a fact made clear by the public’s overwhelming rejection of their rule. When we go abroad, our noblest instinct—to champion democracy—must be guided by prudence and humility: as difficult as it is to understand our own political life at times, hoping for a full understanding of another country’s politics is outright fanciful.
During this tumultuous time, on my frequent trips, I had three lines of effort. First, I reassured our traditional friends that we stood with them in defending their security against the terrorist threat, which was taking no holiday. Second, I made it clear that we would not tolerate any threat of Iranian incursion violating their territorial integrity. Third, I reinforced our ambassadors’ efforts and encouraged regional leaders to be responsive to and inclusive of all their people. I saw all this as buying time for them to make reforms aligned with their societies’ carrying capacity.
Cooperation, too, occurs at the speed of trust. I don’t know how many tens of thousands of miles I logged during the Arab Spring. Conversations with Arab leaders, civilian or military, usually began with a litany of complaints about American leadership. A common refrain was “We love Americans, and we hate your foreign policy.” I think Americans are subject to more lectures about our shortcomings than any other people, because more is expected of us. I listened to my full share. My ironclad rule was to never imply by silence that I agreed with any criticism of the policies of my Commander in Chief. On one visit to a kingdom in the region, after Mubarak had been deposed, the reigning monarch began voicing harsh criticisms of our policies.
“Your Highness,” I finally interrupted, “my loyalty is absolute to my country and my Commander in Chief, President Obama. I will not agree by silence when they are criticized. I’m here to help ensure the security of your kingdom. I carry out the last six hundred meters of American policy. Believe me, I know how to do that, and I will do that. Where our interests overlap, your problems are my problems. And I’m here looking for the overlap so I can help.”
He sat back and stared at me for a minute while his counselors sat silent. Then he smiled and we had a long and extensive talk. There is no shortcut to taking the time to listen to others and find common ground.
Some responses were refreshing. In the United Arab Emirates, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed and his military were so firm in their commitment to fighting terrorism that we at CENTCOM referred to the UAE as “Little Sparta.” Wh
en several NATO allies were pulling troops out of Afghanistan due to domestic political pressure, the crown prince sent in more Emirati F-16s and Special Forces, taking the pressure off the U.S. military to backfill the departing forces. Friends like the UAE stood with us when we needed them, even when our country confused or disappointed them. No nation standing alone can sustain its security. When tensions develop between friends, extraordinary effort must be made to keep those friends close. Washington was badgering nations to adopt swifter change to inclusive government without the benefit of candid appraisals from our most knowledgeable diplomats that might have cautioned against moving too fast and derailing the real change that was necessary. Friendly nations that had stood by us grew resistant to reforms they might otherwise have made.
In Jordan, the ever resolute King Abdullah was standing staunchly by us. He assured me he would keep Jordanian soldiers fighting alongside us in Afghanistan. On one occasion, we were meeting alone on his patio discussing what CENTCOM could do to help Jordan with the refugees pouring in from Syria. Always curious, I decided to ask the king about his job.
“What’s it like being a king?” I said. “I’ve never been one.”
He laughed and waved his hand at a stack of papers.
“Actually, I’ve been writing op-eds,” he said. “I have to explain to my people why they should vote independently in a way that supports how they judge their best interest…I can’t just give an order to get things done. I need my people with me.”
For those who doubt that reform can happen, here I saw a servant leader in action.
The turbulence from the Arab Spring of 2011 spilled over into the next year. By mid-2012, Syria was in the throes of a bloody civil war, and Libya, next door to Egypt, was in total chaos. Sensing the opportunity, Al Qaeda was on the move in Yemen, while the Taliban were continuing to attack in Afghanistan. Iran was stirring subversion and terrorism throughout the region, from the Mediterranean to the Arabian Sea, while reinforcing Assad’s genocidal campaign in Syria. The hope of the Arab Spring had shown itself to be a mirage, disappointing so many.
Secretary Panetta’s staff requested that I give an update to a meeting of his Defense Policy Board, a select group of former officials cleared personally by the Secretary of Defense for sensitive classified information. I didn’t initiate these sorts of meetings, but I benefited, because I could solicit their wise, discreet advice about broader issues I would not bring up routinely with my subordinates. Former Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger questioned me when I was explaining some force deployments.
“Excuse me,” he said, “but I’d like to hear about the larger strategy behind those deployments. Where are we going, and what is the end state?”
Believing we were colleagues addressing the common defense, I replied directly.
“I don’t know what our integrated strategy is,” I confessed, “or specifically what it is for my region.”
Out of two hours of discussion, somehow that quote alone shot directly to the White House, and ricocheted back to the Pentagon, causing severe upset.
Later, when a high-ranking DoD official attempted to chew me out for talking “openly with the chattering class” (a strange description of the Secretary’s trusted policy board from one of his own staff), I ignored him. It had become too clear that I was supposed to sit quietly in the back of the bus as it careened off a strategic cliff.
In turbulent times, sound policy and clear strategic principles are especially necessary for achieving our objectives. After they’d stood by us in our time of need after the 9/11 attacks, I didn’t want to publicly assail our Middle East friends. With friends, I believe we should praise in public, stating our own values unapologetically, and in private be totally frank about the potential benefits of change. This is the most productive way to allow others to embrace what we propose and represent.
I constantly had to argue with those in our government who wanted human rights to be the singular criterion of our foreign policy. We do not always live up to our ideals. The Arab monarchies and strongman leaders were not reforming at the pace our human rights idealists insisted upon. But those nations that had stood by us after 9/11 had records far better than those of hostile, oppressive regimes like Iran and Syria. Expecting countries with no democratic tradition, only recently coming out from under the yoke of colonialism, to embrace democracy at the level demanded by some in Washington was based on a wholly unrealistic view about the pace of cultural change. We had to be thinking in terms of generations, not months. Pushing change too fast could result in total chaos; better for us to quietly and firmly support a pace of change that would not incite a predictably violent, even volcanic, response—the opposite of what we intended. At the same time, I championed the values America stands for, even when it made our partners uncomfortable. If I wanted them to listen to me, I had to respect their dignity in public. But I’m known for blunt speaking, and I was very blunt—in private.
Public humiliation does not change our friends’ behavior or attitudes in a positive way. In international affairs, we have often had to choose between the lesser of two evils, a balance between idealism and pragmatism. It is better to have a friend with deep flaws than an adversary with enduring hostility. We remain convinced of the strengths of our own democratic model. America has two fundamental powers: the power of intimidation toward our adversaries and the power of inspiration toward our friends and like-minded people everywhere. Nothing can inspire others more than our ability to make our own democracy work.
To see what might have happened had the Egyptian military not acquiesced to the will of millions of Egyptians in the streets, we need only look at Syria. In 2011, Sunnis and Kurds—the vast majority in Syria—rose up and demonstrated against the tyrannical rule of the Assad regime. The military, loyal to Assad rather than to the people, fired on unarmed demonstrators and continued with a wholesale slaughter for the rest of that year. Estimates had it that more than a hundred thousand civilians were killed and millions were fleeing.
In the spring of 2012, I visited the refugee camps Jordan had erected for those who had managed to escape. Jordan had been forced to contribute 20 percent of its entire military budget to provide tents and food for 150,000 poor souls who had nothing but the tattered clothes on their backs. In row after row of canvas tents, I saw the human consequences of the Assad regime’s brutality. Perhaps two out of every five were wounded. I’d seen refugees in many parts of the world, but never as traumatized as the ones I saw in those camps.
CENTCOM had kept a keen eye on Assad’s stockpile of chemical weapons, and we were picking up indications that he was preparing to use them against his own people. As horrific as his murderous crackdown already was, using chemical weapons was even more repugnant. After the awful damage they caused in World War I, even Hitler was unwilling to use them on the battlefield in World War II. Decades earlier, Assad’s father had used chemical weapons to put down a revolt. To prevent this from happening again, in August President Obama issued a firm warning. “That’s a red line for us,” he said. “There would be enormous consequences if we start seeing movement on the chemical weapons front or the use of chemical weapons.”
A short time later, Assad did employ chemical weapons, killing hundreds of civilians. Obviously, the President’s warning had not impressed the murderous dictator. At CENTCOM, I had assumed we would be the ones to provide the President’s “enormous consequence.” We prepared options to hold Assad harshly accountable, with NATO and Arab allies in support, from single strikes to more extensive operations, depending on the President’s judgment. We were ready, and I awaited the orders.
Instead, the President decided not to strike. We never responded militarily. This was a shot not heard around the world. Old friends in NATO and in the Pacific registered dismay and incredulity that America’s reputation had been seriously weakened as a credible security partner. Within thirty-six ho
urs, I received a phone call from a friendly Pacific-nation diplomat. “Well, Jim,” he said, “I guess we’re on our own with China.”
“Dynamite in the hands of a child,” Winston Churchill wrote, “is not more dangerous than a strong policy weakly carried out.” Over the next several years, Syria totally disintegrated into hell on earth. The consequences included an accelerated refugee flow that changed the political culture of Europe, punctuated by repeated terrorist attacks. And America today lives with the consequences of emboldened adversaries and shaken allies.
* * *
—
From my first day at CENTCOM, I knew we faced two principal adversaries: stateless Sunni Islamist terrorists and the revolutionary Shiite regime of Iran, the most destabilizing country in the region. Iran was by far the more deadly of the two threats. Its fanatical leadership class, the mullahs, had the revolutionary fervor and the intellectual, industrial, economic, and natural resources to develop nuclear weapons and intercontinental missiles while funding terror activities around the world. For more than three decades, the Iranian regime had been America’s implacable enemy. I had to deal with the polarities of keeping an unsteady peace while responding to active Iranian operations against us and our friends in the region. Linchpins such as Saudi Arabia, Israel, Jordan, the UAE, and Bahrain kept a wary eye on Iran. But America’s erratic response to the Arab Spring and the nonresponse to Assad’s crossing our self-imposed “red line” had shaken their confidence. I heard constant concerns that America was acquiescing to Iranian hegemony.
My job was to provide options for the President, and we conducted frequent war games, testing moves versus countermoves. As the strategist Rear Admiral J. C. Wylie had written, “Nobody other than God can consistently predict the onset, scope, tenor, intensity, course, and consequences of any war. Requirements therefore exist for a rucksack full of plans…because planning for certitude is the most grievous of all…mistakes.” My rucksack had plans that would give the President options to ensure the fewest major regrets if a crisis struck.