Aftandilian Publishes Op-Ed on Defense Secretary James Mattis
Gregory Aftandilian, Lecturer at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University, published an Op-Ed on the tenure of United States Secretary of Defense James Mattis.
Aftandilian’s Op-Ed, entitled “Is US Defence Secretary James Mattis on His Way Out?” was published in The Arab Weekly on October 28, 2018.
From the text of the article:
During his recent interview on CBS News’s “60 Minutes,” US President Donald Trump seemed to suggest that he no longer valued his defence secretary, James Mattis, as he once did.
Trump said he didn’t know whether Mattis would be leaving his administration. Then the Republican president said Mattis was “sort of a Democrat, if you want to know the truth.” To top it off, Trump claimed he knew more about NATO than Mattis, all the while saying, a bit incredulously, that he liked the former US Marine Corps general.
That Trump pinned the “Democrat” label on Mattis, after describing the opposition party at a recent campaign event as “an angry left-wing mob,” was interpreted as a putdown by the president.
Mattis did not want to get into a tiff with the president. A Pentagon spokesman, asked about Trump’s remarks, said: “Secretary Mattis is laser-focused on doing his job.” Later, on a flight to Vietnam, Mattis said he and Trump had “never talked about me leaving.” Mattis added that he prided himself during his military career in being apolitical and that he was neither a registered Democrat nor Republican.
Aftandilian spent over 21 years in government service, most recently on Capitol Hill where he was foreign policy adviser to Congressman Chris Van Hollen (2007-2008), professional staff member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and foreign policy adviser to Senator Paul Sarbanes (2000-2004), and foreign policy fellow to the late Senator Edward Kennedy (1999).