Key US allies expressed deep concerns Friday about Defense Secretary James Mattis’ announcement that he will step down amid policy disagreements with President Trump, including his decision to withdraw all US troops from Syria.
“Secretary Mattis has made a key contribution to keeping NATO strong and ready to deal with the significant security challenges we face,” said NATO spokeswoman Oana Lungescu, Reuters reported.
“He is widely respected as a soldier and a diplomat,” she added.
Unlike the president, the retired four-star Marine general has been viewed in Europe as firmly committed to the 29-member North Atlantic alliance.
Trump has warned European allies that Washington could withdraw its support unless they boost defense spending.
“We are grateful for the iron-clad commitment of the United States to NATO. US leadership keeps our transatlantic alliance strong,” Lungescu added.
Norbert Röttgen, chairman of the foreign affairs committee in the German parliament, said Mattis — who will leave office at the end of February – “was the last man standing for what had been US foreign policy since World War II.”
He added: “With him gone, this really marks a juncture in the Trump presidency. Now we have an unrestrained Trump, which is a dangerous signal for the year ahead,” The Washington Post reported.
Former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt, co-chairman of the European Council on Foreign Relations, described the reaction to news of Mattis’ imminent departure as “a morning of alarm in Europe.”
Mattis, he tweeted, “is the remaining strong bond across the Atlantic in the Trump administration. All the others are fragile at best or broken at worst.”
In Paris, former French diplomatic adviser François Heisbourg tweeted that Mattis had stabilized a dysfunctional administration and “helped preserve the Western alliance system.”
“Believe me, America’s allies are already reviewing all options,” wrote Heisbourg, head of the International Institute for Strategic Studies. “This is big bad.”
Even Moscow was rattled by the news. Although Mattis often referred to Russia as a strategic adversary, the Kremlin viewed his leadership as vital to preventing a military confrontation between the two countries in Syria.
“Mattis was tough, but not without realism: He didn’t seek conflict with Russia,” lawmaker Alexey Pushkov said on Twitter. “Will the replacement be for the better?”
President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov was asked about Mattis as a restraining influence on Trump.
“In our times, guessing who restrained President Trump from doing what is the work of political scientists and a rather thankless task,” he answered, The Washington Post reported.
In Israel, Michael Oren, a deputy minister in the prime minister’s office, noted that, like Israel’s leadership, “Mattis believed that a strong American presence in the Middle East served as a buffer to Iran and other hostile elements.”
“Today as in the past, Israel will have to defend itself with its own forces to deal with the great threats in the north,” tweeted the former Israeli ambassador to the US.
With Post wires