US Defense Secretary James Mattis resigned Thursday on the heels of President Donald Trump's plans to withdraw troops from Syria, citing irreconcilable policy differences in a move that took Washington by surprise.

"Because you have the right to have a Secretary of Defense whose views are better aligned with yours on these and other subjects, I believe it is right for me to step down from my position," Mattis wrote in his letter to the President.

Earlier Thursday, a senior administration official said that Mattis was "vehemently opposed" to the Syria decision and a possible Afghanistan troop withdrawal.

Indeed, Mattis' resignation letter amounts to a rebuke of several of Trump's foreign policy views, with the outgoing defense secretary touting the importance of US alliances and of being "unambiguous" in approaching adversaries such as Russia and China. It is devoid of any praise for the President.

The resignation emerged at a chaotic moment in Trump's presidency: The US government is teetering on the edge of a government shutdown, the Trump administration is about to face the hot light of Democratic investigations and the President is grappling with the fallout of a series of firings and resignations. Trump, seeking to downplay the news, stepped out in front of Mattis' resignation, spinning it as a retirement.

Mattis did not explicitly cite his opposition to the President's planned withdrawal of US troops from Syria -- which caught US allies off guard -- but the retired four-star general was privately adamant in urging Trump against the pullback.

Source: cnn.com
BDST: 1000 HRS, DEC 21, 2018
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