Throughout his 40-year career as a Marine, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis built a reputation as an aggressive warrior, leading a blitz on Baghdad and pushing a reluctant Obama administration to hit back against Iran.

Over the past year, he has learned to play a different role: acting as a check on an impulsive president.

The big question is how long Mattis can continue to act as a force for continuity and caution and still retain influence with a president impatient to hit back at America’s enemies and swiftly win wars.

These days, Mattis’s influence radiates across the government. In places such as Afghanistan and Somalia, he has been a force for stability, resisting the president’s instincts to withdraw. In Iran and North Korea, he has curbed Trump’s desire for a show of military strength.

One tense moment came last May as officials grew increasingly concerned about aggressive Iranian behavior.

For weeks, Mattis had been resisting requests from the White House to provide military options for Iran. Now Trump made clear that he wanted the Pentagon to deliver a range of plans that included striking Iranian ballistic missile factories or hitting Iranian speedboats that routinely harassed U.S. Navy vessels.

“Why can’t we sink them?” Trump would sometimes ask about the boats.

National security adviser H.R. McMaster and his staff laid out the president’s request for Mattis in a conference call, but the defense secretary refused, according to several U.S. officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive internal deliberations. At that point, McMaster took Mattis off speakerphone, cleared his staff from the room and continued the conversation.

“It was clear that the call was not going well,” one official said. In the weeks that followed, the options never arrived.

In his first year in the Pentagon, Mattis has been one of the least visible and most consequential members of Trump’s foreign policy team. In Situation Room meetings, he has established himself as a commanding voice, reining in discussions before they devolve into chaos. State Department ambassadors say they have spent more face-to-face time with him than they have their own boss, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

A foreign policy establishment that views Trump as erratic and unreliable uniformly praises Mattis.

“I’m trying to think of a guy who could do the job better than Mattis,” said retired Marine Gen. James Cartwright, who served as vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Obama administration. “There might be . . . but I can’t think of one.”

The former general’s most valuable asset may be his relationship with Trump, who has been known to publicly dress down and freeze out subordinates who disappoint him.

Mattis is “doing a great job,” Trump said of his defense secretary during his State of the Union address last week, drawing a rare standing ovation from Republicans and Democrats alike. A visibly uncomfortable Mattis — the only Cabinet secretary Trump mentioned in the speech — nodded slightly and smiled.

Even before he was confirmed as defense secretary, Mattis’s Democratic admirers in Congress warned him to stay close to Trump to prevent the president or his aides from doing something foolish.

“I called him and said, ‘Trump has no idea what he’s doing but isn’t afraid to do it. You’re across the river, and they’re across the hall,’ ” said Rep. Adam Smith (Wash.), the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, referring to Trump’s top advisers. Smith recalled counseling Mattis: “Your job is to make sure these morons don’t get up in the morning and advance some lamebrained idea.”

Mattis’s top aides said they were struck by how much time he spent at the White House with the president during his first months in the job. When he was not traveling, officials said, the defense secretary was at the White House at least three or four times a week.

Even as Mattis has expressed views contrary to those of the president, on the efficacy of torture or the need for diplomacy with North Korea, he has managed to escape Trump’s wrath.

Before taking over the Pentagon, he often preached: “Loyalty really counts when there’s a hundred reasons not to be loyal.” Mattis has held to that ideal in the battles with the White House that he has lost.

In meetings with the president, Mattis often worked to acknowledge “the emotional essence” of Trump’s arguments and to restate them in ways that were more palatable or in some cases consistent with international laws on armed conflict, officials said.

In contentious meetings last summer on Afghanistan, Mattis and his top aides often dominated the process. He spoke regularly to mid-level aides representing the Defense Department at White House meetings so that they could forcefully advocate the Pentagon’s position. By contrast, senior representatives from the State Department often seemed to have little clue where their secretary stood, officials said.

In one chaotic Situation Room meeting on Afghanistan policy, McMaster shouted at Stephen K. Bannon, Trump’s chief strategist at the time, accusing him of deliberately misrepresenting McMaster’s position.

“You’re a liar!” McMaster yelled, according to two officials at the meeting.

Mattis ended the confrontation by grabbing McMaster’s knee and advising him to be quiet, the officials said.

The scene prompted a shocked Reince Priebus, the White House chief of staff at the time, to turn to a colleague and mouth “W.T.F.”

In the end, Trump decided to nearly double the size of the force in Afghanistan to 15,000 troops. In announcing his decision, Trump said he was acting against his “original instinct.”

His final decision gave Mattis and his commanders almost everything they wanted to expand the longest war in U.S. history.

Last summer, Trump was weighing plans to send more soldiers to Afghanistan and was contemplating the military’s request for more-aggressive measures to target Islamic State affiliates in North Africa. In a meeting with his top national security aides, the president grew frustrated.

“You guys want me to send troops everywhere,” Trump said, according to officials in the Situation Room meeting. “What’s the justification?”

“Sir, we’re doing it to prevent a bomb from going off in Times Square,” Mattis replied.

The response angered Trump, who insisted that Mattis could make the same argument about almost any country on the planet.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions echoed Trump’s concerns, asking whether winning was even possible in a place such as Afghanistan or Somalia.

It was Mattis who made the argument that would, for the moment at least, sway Trump to embrace the status quo — which has held for the past two presidents.

“Unfortunately, sir, you have no choice,” Mattis told Trump, according to officials. “You will be a wartime president.”

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3893119&forum_id=2#35402574)

"You guys want me to send troops everywhere," Trump said, according to officials in the Situation Room meeting. "What's the justification?"

"Sir, we're doing it to prevent a bomb from going off in Times Square," Mattis replied.

The response angered Trump, who insisted that Mattis could make the same argument about almost any country on the planet. <<

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3893119&forum_id=2#35402627)

We should have lit up (or at least fired upon) an iranian speed boat approaching one of our ships in the aftermath of the 2016 unlawful detention.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3893119&forum_id=2#35403379)

That’s the point of the American military. It will go to every country on the planet if it *has* to. It’s the reason we dedicate 50% of our budget to it

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3893119&forum_id=2#35664505)

They really are little totalitarians at heart

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3893119&forum_id=2#35402764)

MY McMasters

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3893119&forum_id=2#35406632)

MIC whores they are

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3893119&forum_id=2#35403288)

“Why can’t we sink them?” Trump would sometimes ask about the boats.

***

In meetings with the president, Mattis often worked to acknowledge “the emotional essence” of Trump’s arguments and to restate them in ways that were more palatable or in some cases consistent with international laws on armed conflict, officials said.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3893119&forum_id=2#35406691)