“Worth more than 10 battleships or five armed divisions is a sense of American political resolve” .

“Since coming back from overseas, this is more of a foreign country than the places overseas,” he said. “I don’t understand it. It’s like America has lost faith in rational thought.”

Mattis’ remarks focused on Iran, which he characterized as the “single most enduring threat to stability and peace in the Middle East,” regardless of the attention given to Islamic State extremists and other non-state actors.

…the U.S. is in a “strategy-free mode,” he said, shifting attention from one region of the world to another without consistency.

“My point is, we’ve got to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time,” he said.

“For a sitting U.S. president to see our allies as freeloaders is nuts.”

“The bottom line on the American situation is that the next president is going to inherit a mess,” he said. “That’s the most diplomatic word for it.”