NEW YORK – “Mad Dog”, literally “crazy dog” but in the current language “rabid dog”: a not very reassuring nickname. And in fact, it is considered a super-hawk the retired Marine General James Mattis, who Donald Trump designated as his next Secretary of Defense tonight. Mattis, 66, completes the ranks of national security experts appointed by Trump, joining General Michael Flynn (National Security Advisor) and Republican MP Mike Pompeo appointed to lead the CIA.

For Mattis there will be one more obstacle to overcome, in addition to the Senate hearings: he has been retired for only 4 years while the law provides that a soldier cannot hold government posts before 7 years from the moment he retired . An ad hoc law can be made and a precedent was made in 1950 with General Marshall.

Of Mattis we know that at least in one case – very recent and publicized – he had a moderating effect on Trump, causing him to change position on torture. Trump himself said this, admitting that he had refrained from reintroducing “waterboarding” after he had assured him that the most effective techniques for extracting confessions or information from terrorists point to soft methods: “beer and cigarettes “.

But on everything else, Mattis is certainly not a moderate. In particular we know that it has opposing opinions to Barack Obama on Iran. The general has publicly stated that “while everyone is focusing on ISIS, the maximum danger in the Middle East remains Iran”. A position that can encourage Trump to cancel the nuclear agreement, on which the president-elect has already expressed a negative opinion.

In military environments, even those who disagree with him consider Mattis a high-quality general, not just a strategist but a front-line man, often engaged on combat fronts. He served for 44 years in the Marine Corps, among the most recent posts he led a task force in Afghanistan right at the beginning of the conflict in 2001, another at the beginning of the invasion of Iraq in 2003. In 2010 he was promoted in the US Central Command (the equivalent of a general staff) as responsible for all the US military in the Middle East.

It is in that phase that he distinguished himself as a relentless critic of the negotiations with Iran wished by Obama. In a convention of the Aspen Security Forum in 2013, when he was asked what his number one concern was, he replied: “Iran, Iran, Iran.” As for the nickname of Mad Dog, it was given to him by the marines he commanded at the front during the first Gulf War, in 1991.

(01 December 2016)