In one of those "can you believe someone is actually having to say this" moments, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis—the "Mad Dog" who wants to attack Iran—is providing some sanity on Iraq. No, he says, despite popular vote loser Donald Trump's obsession about their oil, we're not going after it.
Mattis' arrived on an unannounced visit in Iraq as the battle to oust Islamic State militants from western Mosul moved into its second day, and as the Pentagon considers ways to accelerate the campaign against IS in Iraq and Syria.
Those efforts could be complicated by Trump's oil threat and his inclusion of Iraq in the administration's travel ban — twin blows that have roiled the nation and spurred local lawmakers to pressure Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to reduce cooperation with Washington.
"I think all of us here in this room, all of us in America have generally paid for our gas and oil all along, and I'm sure that we will continue to do that in the future," Mattis told reporters traveling with him. "We're not in Iraq to seize anybody's oil."
That's a critical message to send right now, as we do continue to need Iraq's cooperation in the ISIS fight, and because Mattis has been tasked with finding a strategy for defeating it. And he has just a week to meet Trump's deadline for doing that. That's a nuance of foreign policy that seems to be beyond Trump's ken—you can't threaten to seize a nation's primary natural resource and asset at the same you are asking for that nation's help.