T. Belman. Given McMaster’s connection to Soros and his views on radical Islam being totally at odds with those of Trump, you have to wonder why he was given the job in the first place.
Pentagon looks for new assignment for a National Security Adviser trapped between competing agendas, even though White House says his job is secure for now
By Dion Nissenbaum and Gordon Lubold, WSJ
WASHINGTON—Even before he took the job last winter as President Donald Trump’s national security adviser, Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster had a target on his back.
He stepped into the role with lukewarm support from the president and outright resistance from high-ranking Trump loyalists who saw in Gen. McMaster the embodiment of the Washington status quo they were trying to upend.
Working under a constant cloud of innuendo that his days in the West Wing were numbered, Gen. McMaster through the year positioned himself as one of Mr. Trump’s most hawkish allies in fractured debates on the president’s top national-security challenges, including North Korea.
But that, in turn, has put Gen. McMaster at odds with other members of the national-security team, especially Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, who have pushed for more measured approaches in policy debates, according to current and former Trump administration officials.
Now, Gen. McMaster is working with strained alliances both inside and outside the White House that have restricted his ability to craft national-security strategy in the Trump White House, the current and former officials said.
Hobbled in his ability to translate Mr. Trump’s sometimes-unorthodox ideas into concepts acceptable to more cautious members of the national-security team, Gen. McMaster has been thrust into a precarious position, with persistent speculation he will be pushed out of his post as soon as the Pentagon finds a suitable new job for him or the White House settles on someone to take his place.
The military is actively looking for a new job for Gen. McMaster, but it could take time to find a suitable position, according to U.S. officials. And the search has been made more difficult in part by his advocacy on behalf of the president’s views and actions. The White House is knocking back speculation that Gen. McMaster will be replaced sooner rather than later. “It’s not a great fit,” said one U.S. official, “but it fits for now.”
While Gen. McMaster may have shallow support in some corners of the administration, he has won grudging praise even from some critics for bringing a sense of order to the National Security Council after the tumultuous monthlong tenure of his predecessor, Mike Flynn, the retired Army general pushed out for misleading the White House about his talks with the Russian ambassador to the U.S.
Allies of Gen. McMaster say he is doing an effective job at exploring and providing a range of policy options to the president, and then helping Mr. Trump to implement that policy, they say.
They voice frustration at members of the national security team who appear to be quietly undermining policy guidance from the White House rather than debating it openly out of fear of losing favor with the president.
“Individuals for various reasons don’t want to disagree openly,” one U.S. official said. “Instead, they prefer to hack away at it on the margins.”
“In general, I think H.R. has been slightly more hawkish on most questions than most cabinet members and, in that regard, he’s aligned with the president’s instincts,” said Sen. Tom Cotton, the Arkansas Republican who has worked closely with Gen. McMaster and Mr. Trump to shape the administration’s strategy for confronting Iran.
The issue that has brought the internal divisions to the forefront is North Korea, where Gen. McMaster has been a firm advocate for beefing up the military options, according to administration officials.
Gen. McMaster has raised the idea of taking a “preventive” strike against North Korea’s nuclear-missile program if diplomacy fails. And he has promoted the administration’s “maximum pressure” strategy against Pyongyang.
That has created alarm at the Pentagon and State Department, where officials worry that Gen. McMaster’s efforts could make it more likely that Mr. Trump would decide to strike North Korea.
While Gen. McMaster has publicly warned that time is running out for a diplomatic solution with North Korea, that view isn’t shared by everyone on the national-security team, said current and former U.S. officials.
Gen. McMaster also has alienated prospective allies in the military by directly calling combatant commanders around the world without first telling Mr. Mattis, U.S. officials said. This has been a particular source of friction in South Asia, where Gen. McMaster is seen by some to have undermined Gen. Joe Votel, head of U.S. Central Command, by reaching out directly to Pakistani leaders to convey a tougher administration message than the one favored by other members of the national security team, according to current and former U.S. officials.
U.S. Central Command wouldn’t comment on Gen. McMaster’s efforts in Pakistan.
Inside the White House, meanwhile, he has struggled to retain support from a volatile president who has lashed out over Gen. McMaster’s successful push to send more U.S. troops to Afghanistan and to preserve former President Barack Obama’s nuclear-containment deal with Iran.
He has been known to speak over other members of the national-security team in Situation Room meetings when he doesn’t like what he’s hearing and to frustrate the president with lengthy policy dissertations in the Oval Office.
“He doesn’t have any chemistry with the president,” said one former Trump administration official. “He lectures, and you can’t lecture the president.”
Last month, Mr. Trump used his favored soapbox to publicly jab Gen. McMaster for saying there was no doubt that Russia had meddled in the 2016 presidential election.
“General McMaster forgot to say that the results of the 2016 election were not impacted or changed by the Russians,” Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter.
Gen. McMaster first found himself battling the president early in his tenure when he pushed to send more troops to Afghanistan in hopes of ending the 16-year-old war. Steve Bannon, then serving as the president’s chief strategist, fiercely opposed Gen. McMaster’s approach and convinced Mr. Trump to push back, according to current and former officials. In one key meeting, Mr. Trump became so irate with McMaster that the president “threw him out of the Oval Office,” said one former administration official.
Mr. Bannon had a way of getting under Gen. McMaster’s skin. In one Situation Room debate about the Afghanistan strategy, Gen. McMaster blew up at Mr. Bannon and accused him of misrepresenting his views. Mr. Mattis, who was sitting next to Gen. McMaster, had to step in and put his hand on Gen. McMaster’s knee to try to calm him down, according to former U.S. officials.
During the protracted Afghanistan strategy debate, Mr. Bannon led a quiet effort to push Gen. McMaster out of the White House by giving him his fourth star and sending him off to Kabul where he could implement the strategy he was pushing, current and former officials said.
Afghanistan proved to be one of the places where Gen. McMaster forged alignment with the national-security team to push back against Mr. Trump’s musings about withdrawing troops.
But Gen. McMaster soon found himself butting heads with Mr. Mattis after he discovered that the Pentagon chief hadn’t moved quickly to give U.S. forces in Afghanistan more power to fight the Taliban.
When Gen. McMaster called Mr. Mattis about it, the defense secretary refused to discuss it and abruptly ended the conversation, according to one U.S. official.
“That was the big tension,” the official said. “And we’ve never gotten over that.”
In moments of frustration, Gen. McMaster and staff members have playfully described Mr. Mattis as “President Mattis,” and the general sometimes refers to Mr. Mattis and Mr. Tillerson as the “Gang of Two,” U.S. officials said.
But Gen. McMaster appeared to learn from the bruising debate, and he tried to adapt his approach when he took on the even more difficult task of shaping the Trump administration’s Iran strategy.
Like most of the national-security team, Gen. McMaster resisted Mr. Trump’s campaign pledge to pull the U.S. out of an international agreement with Iran that has curbed Tehran’s nuclear program, current and former officials said.
In meetings with key lawmakers, Gen. McMaster made it clear that he wanted to find a way to persuade the president to stay in the deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, something that rankled Mr. Trump, who wanted to torpedo one of his predecessor’s signature foreign-policy achievements.
“He has developed a game plan: Work with Congress, work with Europe to appease the president in modifying the JCPOA without blowing up the JCPOA,” said Sen. Ben Cardin, a Maryland Democrat.
Sen. Bob Corker, the Tennessee Republican intimately involved in the White House deliberations over its Iran strategy, described Gen. McMaster as the “quarterback.”
For now, the Pentagon is actively looking for a way to give Gen. McMaster his long-sought fourth star and move him to a respectable job later this year where his influence might be muted, according to U.S. officials. His name already appears on a number of “assignment slates” at the Pentagon, meaning he is being considered for several four-star posts.
Decisions on finding new commanders for U.S. Northern Command and U.S. European Command, two options for Gen. McMaster, may be made by the end of April, another U.S. official said.
Write to Dion Nissenbaum at dion.nissenbaum@wsj.com and Gordon Lubold at Gordon.Lubold@wsj.com
Tom Cotton?