WarSclerotic

In the summer of 2011, after Iranian-supplied rockets had killed 15 U.S. troops per month in Iraq, former Marine Corps Gen. James Mattis, the commander of U.S. armed forces in the Middle East at the time, sought to retaliate against Iran, but was denied by the Obama administration.

Mattis, who — pending congressional confirmation — will serve as U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s defense secretary, proposed a strike inside Iranian territory, according to former senior U.S. officials speaking to The Washington Post this week.

The plan, according to the officials, was to make it clear to the Iranian government that providing rockets to its Shiite proxies inside Iraq would no longer be tolerated. Mattis reportedly suggested a nighttime strike against a power plant or oil refinery on Iranian soil.

According to The Washington Post, President Barack Obama believed such a strike would infuriate the Iranians, possibly escalating the Iraqi occupation he was trying so desperately to end. Many White House staffers, meanwhile, reportedly feared the plan risked starting a war with Iran, a country Obama wanted to seek a detente with.

“There were clearly White House staff who thought the recommendations he was making were too aggressive,” then-Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, told The Post. “But I thought a lot of that was, frankly, not having the maturity to look at all of the options that a president should look at in order to make the right decisions.”

In addition to rockets, Iran’s Quds Force, a branch of the Revolutionary Guard Corps, supplied its proxies with deadly explosive devices designed specifically to tear through U.S. armored vehicles. The Quds Force is believed to be responsible for more than 500 U.S. deaths in Iraq.

The heated discussions in 2011 over how to respond to the Iranian rockets went on for weeks. In the end, Mattis was authorized to take action inside Iraq against the leaders of the Iranian-backed militias.

Senior White House officials said the American military response effectively deterred the Iranians and slowed the rocket attacks. Only 10 Americans died in Iraq during the last five months of 2011.

“It was a very tough, tough period,” a former senior White House official said. “And it was a very tough response.”

Mattis and some of his supporters, however, felt the American response demonstrated that the Obama administration was unwilling to take the fight directly to the Iranians, even when they drew American blood.

“The American response solved the immediate problem of Iranian-backed attacks, but was not sufficient to deter Iran from further challenges to the U.S. military throughout the region,” one senior U.S. official involved in the deliberations told The Washington Post.

Meanwhile, whether it was known to Mattis or not, the Obama administration likely denied the strike request because it was secretly negotiating with Iran on its developing nuclear weapons program at the time; and it was feared that hitting Iran would likely derail the talks.

The secret talks with Iran would eventually fall apart regardless, while 54 U.S. military personnel were killed in Iraq in 2011.

Ultimately, according to the Washington Post report, Mattis’ advocacy and aggressive style alienated Obama and his administration. Mattis was relieved of his command five months early, convinced his dismissal was for not running in step with the White House, friends and former colleagues said.

Now, as defense secretary under Trump, Mattis will play a different role. He may be compelled to act as a check on an inexperienced president’s instincts, The Washington Post suggested.

Shortly after Trump tapped him to lead the Pentagon, Mattis asked Michele Flournoy, the front-runner for the defense secretary job in a Hillary Clinton White House, to consider serving as his deputy.

His courtship of Flournoy suggested a bias for continuity over radical change and underscored his determination to be an independent voice in White House policy debates, The Washington Post said.

Flournoy ultimately decided that her differences with the president-elect were too deep to accept the position. Several weeks later, Mattis was still searching for a deputy.