Ministry Of War
FRONTLINE|April 27, 2018

Donald Trump and his new Cabinet may regard war as the most effective instrument of statecraft, but there is little appetite amongst the U.S.’ allies for armed action against Iran and North Korea.

Vijay Prashad
Ministry Of War

A MID-LEVEL OFFICIAL IN THE UNITED States State Department smiled as he talked about Trump’s new Cabinet. It is sadly funny that the most serious person in the Cabinet is someone with the nickname “Mad Dog”. We talked about the career of General James Mattis, Trump’s Secretary of Defence. No one seemed concerned with the actual career of Mattis, said the official. He recalledMattis’ career in Iraq.Mattis had been responsible for the flattening of Fallujah in 2004 and for the Mogr el-Deeb wedding party massacre in May 2004. He had ordered the bombing of a tent in this

little village near the Syrian border. As many as 42 people died in that attack—14 of them were children.No one has been held to account for this murder. Mattis, as the person who authorised the bombing, has never been charged. “Mad Dog didn’t get his name out of thin air,” said the official. In Trump’s Cabinet, “MadDog”Mattis is seen as the moderate.He is the “adult in the room,” as the State Department official put it.

Trump’s cabinet has haemorrhaged. Many of the so-called sober heads have been fired. First went Trump’s Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, a former head of Exxon-Mobil who was seen to be too rational for the Trump team. Then went National Security AdviserGeneralH.R. McMaster, a military man who was seen as insufficiently deferential to the neo-conservative view of the world. Neither Tillerson nor McMaster thought it prudent to box North Korea and Iran into a corner. Neither wanted to draw the U.S. into a major war on two ends of Asia. This is the reason why a petulant Donald Trump pushed them out the door.

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