March 20, 2026 • 36 mins
Former Four Star Marine General Jim Mattis and best selling author and popular podcaster Ryan Holiday join Margaret Hoover to talk about the war in Iran, the Trump administration’s “murky” endgame, and the role of Stoic philosophy in military leadership.
This interview was recorded as part of the Hoover Institution’s “Ideas That Made U.S.” series at Stanford University.
Mattis– who led the Pentagon for two years in President Trump’s first term–discusses what he learned about Iran in his four decades of military service and why he doubts the regime will collapse due to U.S. and Israeli airstrikes.
Holiday, a communications expert and host of the Daily Stoic podcast, comments on the administration’s efforts to build public support for the war, and he recalls his own 2021 interview with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine–who shares Mattis' interest in Stoicism.
Mattis explains why he believes America’s alliances are vital, questions the Trump administration’s easing of sanctions on Russia, and discusses what an eventual end to the war could look like.
Support for Firing Line with Margaret Hoover is provided by Robert Granieri, Vanessa and Henry Cornell, The Fairweather Foundation, The Tepper Foundation, Peter and Mary Kalikow, The Beth and Ravenel Curry Foundation, Pritzker Military Foundation, Cliff and Laurel Asness, Katharine J. Rayner, Charles R. Schwab, Lindsay and George Billingsley, The Meadowlark Foundation, Jared Stone, and Al and Kathy Hubbard.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:01):
Here's the problem. Targetry does not take the place
of strategy. And right now, whether or not we
have a strategy to actually use diplomacy, economics, allies,
allies, allies is still to be proven.
I think it would be very unlikely that this regime would
break right now. That's former Defense Secretary
(00:26):
Jim Mattis assessing America's operations in Iran.
I'm Margaret Hoover. This is THE FIRING Line podcast.
We will keep pushing, keep advancing.
No quarter, no mercy for our enemies.
After three weeks of US and Israeli airstrikes, the Iranian
(00:50):
regime is showing no signs of collapsing.
We never asked for a ceasefire and we have never asked even for
negotiation. And the costs of the conflict
are being felt around the world.Why can't the US just
immediately reopen the Strait ofHormuz?
Well, we could, but it takes 2 to tango.
(01:12):
Jim Mattis commanded troops in Iraq and Afghanistan as a Marine
Corps general, confronted Iranian aggression as commander
of U.S. Central Command before serving
as President Trump's first Defense Secretary.
The American president a week ago called it a little
excursion. But they are fighting for their
lives. The mullahs are because the
people probably will kill them if they overthrow them.
(01:33):
Ryan Holiday is a best selling author, the popular host of the
podcast The Daily Stoic, and an expert on the ancient philosophy
that has guided General Mattis throughout his storied career.
I think we are dealing with the consequences of the sort of
celebration and the raising up of passion and emotion and
impulse and gut which the Stoicswould have told us to be quite
(01:57):
suspicious of. I sat down with them both at the
Hoover Institution at Stanford University to discuss the state
of the war, the virtues of military leadership, and the
challenges that lie ahead. We need a very strong military
to defend this idea of a democracy.
But at the same time, if we don't use all of our strengths
(02:18):
and there I would point to allies without them, we're not
going to get there. General Jim Mattis, Ryan
Holiday, welcome to this specialtaping of Firing Line at the
Hoover Institution, where, General Mattis, you serve as a
senior fellow and I am privileged to serve on the Board
of Overseers. It is especially meaningful to
(02:40):
have you here now, General Mattis, as somebody who spent 40
years in the military studying Iran, and Ryan, as someone who
thinks deeply and writes frequently about the
relationships between leaders and the people they lead.
General Mattis, you first dealt with Iran in 1979 when you were
(03:03):
stationed in the Indian Ocean during the hostage crisis at the
US Embassy in Tehran. What have you learned about your
engagement with Iran and the enemy that America is now
fighting? Well, first of all, the Iran
regime that we are fighting, we are not fighting the Iranian
(03:25):
people, 8090% of them would get rid of that regime just as fast
or faster than we would. And you'd have to go a long way
to find someone who dislikes that regime more than me because
I was stationed at the Naval Academy prep school in the early
80s. And I had to do 7 of the next of
kin notifications to moms and dads in Rhode Island whose sons
(03:51):
were killed in the Marine Peacekeeper barrack when the
French paratroopers and the Marines were attacked there in
in that bombing. And that was done directly at
the behest and direction of the Iranian regime.
And it starts there. They declared war on us through
their proxies and they have beenat war with us ever since.
(04:12):
You probably could never make any a charge that this is an
illegal or war that we are conducting right now, because I
can give you the murderous attacks that go over decades
that they have conducted not just against the Americans, but
against Israelis, against Arabs.I mean, the the list is very,
(04:32):
very long. So what you see right now, what
we have learned to answer your question is you've got a regime
there that is irrational. It is based on external threats
because internally they would bevoted out if there was any kind
of a fair vote. The only people who get to run
(04:53):
for office there have to be approved by the mullahs who are
in charge, and there is probablyno end to their hostility with
that regime in charge. We have seen one administration
after another try to find what Icall the the fruitless pursuit
(05:15):
of the Iranian moderate somewhere in that regime, and we
haven't found him yet. OK, It doesn't exist.
This is a regime. Like if, if the CIA is analyzing
the regime to show you how we learn about them, they have a
list of what are the indicators of an autocrat staying in power.
There's over 70 indicators and they look at all these things.
(05:38):
One of them, one of those indicators outweighs all the
rest. Will the regime murder their own
people at the industrial level? If they will, they're going to
stay in power. If you have an unarmed
population up against a very well armed regime that is
fighting a Total War right now, Total War, we're fighting a
(06:01):
limited war. The American president a week
ago called it a little excursion.
But they are fighting for their lives.
The mullahs are because the people probably will kill them
if they overthrow them. They're, they're just that angry
at them. So they're fighting like that.
What do we, what have we learnedfrom it?
It's going to be a darn difficult problem, a darn
(06:23):
difficult problem. I hope we learned it.
I don't know if our actions to date by what can only be
considered a highly effective U.S. military is matched by the
strategic framework within whichthey're operating.
That goes beyond the military aspect.
So in the last three weeks, the Air Force, the Navy and Marine
aviators have flown more than 8000 missions, combat fights.
(06:47):
They've struck more than 7800 targets, damaged or destroyed
more than 120 naval vessels in the Iranian Navy.
And yet newly reported assessments suggest that the
Iranian regime is not budging. They are not, quote, UN quote,
not cracking, and they are willing to fight to the end.
(07:09):
So, General Mattis, is what you're saying, that the posture
of the Iranian regime at this moment will be on, will continue
to be unyielding? Well, let's, let's start with
the problem. It's the regime.
There are 5 military threats. The nuclear weapons program, not
nuclear program, Nuclear weaponsprogram, which we set back some
(07:33):
months ago, allegedly obliterated it.
Well, apparently came back in a hurry.
That's been set back further. You've got the maritime threat
ships, any ship, cruise missiles, mines, that sort of
thing that's been set back. Navies are capital intensive.
They've lost theirs to reconstitute it.
It's going to take a lot of money and a lot of time, but
(07:55):
they don't need a Navy to lay mines or shoot any ship.
Cruise missiles from the from the the land.
The ballistic missile problem had been set back.
They've fired a lot of them. We've taken out a lot and we've
taken out a lot of their production capability.
Then you got the cyber problem. Look what happened to Stryker
medical equipment and how we just got them shut down.
(08:16):
Big, big attack that is still intact, but we can fight against
that. That's not going to determine
anything right now. Then you've got the proxies, you
know them as Lebanese, Hezbollah, Hamas, PIJ, Houthis,
that sort of thing, plus lone wolves who are inspired.
They, the military side has donethat.
(08:37):
Here's the problem. Targetry does not take the place
of strategy. And right now, whether or not we
have a strategy to actually use diplomacy, economics, allies,
allies, allies is still to be proven.
Is it your understanding, based on what you know of the Iranian
(08:58):
regime, that it is it? It seems plausible that their
will is unbroken. I think it would be very
unlikely that this regime would break right now.
But like Hemingway's point abouthow a man went broke gradually
and then suddenly, you know it, it is a very fragile regime in
(09:24):
terms of its grip, but it's strong enough with its murder
and all. They've told, for example,
they've told the Iranian parents, don't let your sons and
daughters demonstrate because wewill shoot them.
We will you, we will go after them.
So no, they're not going to go away anywhere right?
Right now, I would not think that they're going to break.
So you've summarized one of yourleadership techniques as and
(09:48):
especially on the battlefield asclearly stating the purpose
sparsely outlining the methods that are to be used, and then by
explaining the desired end stateof any mission.
So how do you understand as a civilian now the Operation Epic
(10:10):
Furies purpose and desired end state?
As you can see, the lady does her homework.
The it's murky. It it, it is murky right now to
understand what we in the military call the commander's
intent. The first couple sentences are
(10:31):
my aim is, and you fill it in and the last couple sentences
are at the end of this, we will have accomplished this.
And in the method, the method you give just enough to tell the
Secretary of State, Secretary ofTreasury, Secretary of Defense,
what you want them to do to carry that out.
And we've heard things like unconditional surrender.
(10:53):
We will select the next leader, take out their Navy, we've done
that. Take out their ballistic
missiles, we've done that. We've heard all sorts of things,
frankly. And it's been murky.
And it's hard to, it's hard to articulate a, an end state
that's achievable. For example, as the American
(11:15):
president has said, it just takes a couple people to screw
up the Gulf because they can getdown there in their fishing
boats and drop mines in. And Lloyd's of London injects
the insurance rates up and people don't want to send their
ships through. And for the American president
to say, well, you know, they're just going to have to show guts.
Let me tell you, I've been in minefields and I hate them.
(11:38):
And every ship can be a minesweeper once, but that's not
the way you want to find the minds, I guarantee you.
So right now, yeah, it it, it's pretty confused.
Ryan, you're also, you're also acommunications expert.
And one of the things General Mattis has always said is as
that. And you, you said this to me
when you were first on the firing line in 2019.
(11:59):
You said you have to get out in front of the American people and
you have to persuade them. You have to have a vigorous
debate. People have to debate why
they're engaging and then they have to be informed.
Ryan, from a communications standpoint, is there still an
opportunity to communicate with the with the American public?
Well, probably seems murky because it is murky and we have
(12:21):
this sort of part of our cultureright now that that seems to
think that planning and strategyand perspective.
And I mean, if one of the richest people in the world
saying that empathy is going to be the downfall of Western
civilization and another big Silicon Valley person say, you
know, I have 0 introspection, I move forward, I never look
(12:44):
backwards, which, by the way, isnot what introspection is.
Introspection is looking inwards.
And a little bit of introspection probably would
have saved Marc Andreessen the scandal that came from those
remarks. Just thinking about how they
might come off. But, but, but the, the point is
like, you're not an egghead or aloser or dweeb because you want
(13:06):
to step back and think about things and you want to have a
plan because ultimately you haveto communicate those plans to,
to the people down the line. And, and I think we are dealing
with the consequences of the sort of celebration and the
raising up of passion and emotion and impulse and gut,
(13:28):
which which the Stoics would have told us to be quite
suspicious of. And we're, and we're, we're
raising that up over strategic thinking, forethought, expert
knowledge, you know, a sense of history.
And then, and then of course, I think the, the, the, the big
thing we're missing is humility,right?
(13:50):
A sense of limitations, a sense of weakness.
This isn't to say that, that younever proceed because you're no
humility allows you to proceed confidently, knowing that you
have a plan that matches strength against weakness, as
opposed to the delusion that egobrings, which is in complete
(14:12):
ignorance of your vulnerabilities and weaknesses.
And I think we are, we are dealing with that.
The focus on American engagementin Iran has now shifted to the
Strait of Hormuz. General Mattis, is there an end
state that you can imagine our country could live with now that
(14:35):
is achievable? I think we would have to go into
a negotiation. I think we would want as many
allies on our side because we'd want to bring economic
instruments and diplomatic instruments to bear in a way to
restrain the Iranian regime's impulse to export terror and and
(14:58):
that sort of thing. So right now, we would want to
make certain that the nuclear weapons program was not
restarted. They would want to make certain
they could export oil. We would want to make certain
they're not going to restart their ballistic missile program.
They would want to make certain they're not going to be subject
to attack. I can see the shifting positions
(15:18):
on each side, that some of them are hard and some of them are
perhaps negotiable. I don't know that Israel has
that sort of flexibility in mindbecause of their proximity to a
country regime that is sworn to wipe them off the face of the
earth, but I can see the generaloutline of what it would be in
(15:41):
terms of the negotiation. I cannot see right now the
leadership on either side being strategic in thinking and thus
seeing a way, a way to do this while the Iranian regime from
their perspective stays in powerand the American president
(16:04):
believes he doesn't show weakness.
I I can't see how we get there, but I can see what it would look
like. That is an end state with this
current regime in place. Do you do you think it is
plausible, given the amount of coordination and frankly sort of
military prowess that has been demonstrated by our military and
(16:26):
the Israeli military, that how would you estimate the
likelihood of the regime's falling?
I do not believe the regime willfall in the near future.
Now understand war is fundamentally unpredictable.
Fundamentally, that is part of war.
(16:48):
So what I'm saying could be completely reversed in 24 hours.
But I think it is very unlikely that that regime will fall
anytime soon. I think we're going to have to
deal with it. And you know one thing about the
greatest generation coming home from World War 2, they've been
raised in a global depression. They've been through a war that
(17:11):
killed hundreds of thousands of their buddies.
They knew it was a crummy world,and like it or not, we were part
of it. You're going to have to deal
with it. So how do you deal with it?
I'd suggest that America has gotsome of the greatest strengths.
Our economy, our education system.
We have ways of engaging with the world no other country has.
(17:35):
And yes, we need a very strong military to defend this, this
idea of a democracy. But at the same time, if we
don't use all of our strengths and there I would point to
allies without them, we're not going to, we're not going to get
there. But, but so you, you have, you
have mentioned allies. You you mentioned them all the
(17:58):
time throughout the course of your career.
Actually, even in your memoir, you reflected on the fact that
the only time NATO and Article 5has been invoked was by the
United States for our allies to come to our defence.
In response to 911. You, you constantly refer to the
29 allies who responded on our behalf to 911.
(18:18):
You point to the Defend ISIS coalition, which was 74
countries. You point to the 50 country
coalition that served under General Petraeus in Afghanistan.
You say in your memoir, nations with allies thrive.
Those without them die. Whether we like it or not, we
are part of a world that needs allies.
And yet President Trump has saidwe don't need anybody.
(18:43):
We're the strongest nation in the world.
So can the United States succeedin this war without allies other
than Israel? No.
What is your sense of the biggest concerns from our allies
right now? Well, there are many of the same
concerns that we hear from our our fellow citizens.
(19:06):
America is becoming predatory. America is is unreliable.
They say one thing and then theychange seven days later or two
days later. So there's a sense that we are
not a reliable security partner right now.
And your point about the first time NATO went to war was after
(19:27):
we were attacked. And one of the countries that
lost as many boys per capita fighting alongside us after
America was attacked on 9/11 wasDenmark.
And Denmark is, of course, the country that that owns
Greenland. So when you think of a threat
(19:47):
against a NATO ally, or when youhear that we're putting tariffs
on allies, at the same time we're demanding they increase
their defense expenditures, which requires A robust economy.
You're seeing a strategic disconnect and right now, many
of what what many of the actionswe're taking unfortunately mean
(20:12):
that we're working against our own strategic outcome at the
end. And you can't bring allies on
board if they don't trust you. George Shultz, who many of you
know was part here of Hoover formany, many years, one of only
two Americans who held four cabinet level positions in his
(20:34):
lifetime, actually in our history, one of only two that do
that. I only held one position and I'm
still in therapy from it. And he used to say this.
He used to say that trust is thecoin of the realm when it comes
to relations between people. With trust in the room, you can
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do just about anything. Without it, you can do just
about nothing. We're going to have to deal with
this threat by this aberrant, bizarre, murderous regime in
Tehran, and we're going to do itat the end of the day with
allies, lots of allies. Ryan, in 2021, you welcomed then
(21:14):
Major General Dan Kane, who is now currently the Chairman of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to your wildly popular Daily Stoic
podcast. How does the man who is now
supervising America's military engagement around the world rely
(21:35):
on Stoicism? I I imagine it is a difficult
position that he finds himself in.
You don't get to choose your boss in the military or in any
part of the world, right? You don't get to choose your
boss, but you do choose how you decide to serve them.
I, I, I think he's done an an admirable job being the the
(21:57):
voice of reason when he can. He seems to be someone in
command of himself. You don't see him engaged in
backstabbing or attention seeking behaviour.
You, you see him when he addresses the press doing so
respectfully, doing so, you know, with a, a, a certain
(22:20):
amount of humility and gravitas given the the, the nature of of
what what he's dealing with. And I, I'd, I'd like to think
and, and you know that, and I doknow his sort of personal study
of the Stoics has, has informed that approach.
And you want to go back to, to the jobs that these types of
people had 2000 years ago. Marx Realist is the emperor of
(22:43):
Rome. Seneca is the advisor to Nero.
Cato is there as Caesar attemptsto overthrow the Republic.
The, the Stoics were there in the thick of the thick of things
in good times and in bad and tried to do the, the best they
could. They tried to do their duty as
they, as they understood it. And that's what I understand
(23:04):
General Kane is doing. General Mattis, in 1979, not
only were you in the Indian Ocean, but it was one month
after the Shah fled Iran after the Islamic the Islamic
Revolution that General Al Haig joined William F Buckley Junior
as a guest on the original Firing Line.
(23:27):
I'd like you to listen to a short clip from General Haig
reflecting on what happened in the Iranian Revolution.
Take a look. I have been concerned about Iran
for a matter of weeks. I suspect I've been as guilty as
most anyone with respect to the ultimate outcome with which we
are now faced. In what sense were you guilty?
(23:47):
Well, I I think the, the compression of events that we've
observed here over the past two months exceeded even the most
pessimistic of concerns that I certainly have and most anyone
in the West. This is one month after the Shah
has fled Iran, Buckley says. In what sense are you guilty?
(24:09):
And Haig says, I think the compare the compression of
events we've observed here over the past two months exceeded
even the most pessimistic concerns.
Is this a reflection on unpredictability in war?
That and some other things. But what happened in 1979 when
(24:33):
this is being filmed is that changed everything in the Middle
East. Go back to those days the
Soviets invade Afghanistan and threatened to move against the
Straits of Hormuz. At least that was a concern.
President Carter completely changes his view of the Soviet
Union and what he thought peoplehe'd been off for aiding with
(24:54):
their in good faith. He realizes he's been taken to
the cleaners in Iran. The Shah falls and this regime
that we're now dealing with comes in some 47 years ago.
Whatever it is the, the Grand Mosque falls to the nut cases,
the political Islamists, the terror, what what eventually
(25:16):
becomes the Sunni side of the terrorist organizations coming
out of the Mideast. And so out of that, the question
when this war started some couple of weeks ago, were we
going to fundamentally change on, from a strategic point of
view, fundamentally change the construct of the Middle East?
(25:38):
Israel, using hard power, had basically shattered 2 of the
militias of three PIJ and Hamas and Gaza and Lebanese Hezbollah
have been handled pretty roughlythere by the Israeli military.
And was there an opportunity nowto rock them back so far on
their heels that the regime would fall?
(25:59):
That obviously has not happened,although it's been defanged in
terms of its proxies, in terms of its nuclear program has been
set back, Navy sunk, you know, the ballistic missiles set back
this sort of thing. But the regime is still there.
So basically the war on a strategic level has not changed
the overarching framing principle of what we have to
(26:21):
deal with in that area, and we will have to deal with it.
We can't walk away and say sorry, we got distracted or we
got tired of this. We're going to have to deal with
whatever comes out of this current war.
And I think it's going to include that regime still there
that goes back to that, that fateful year, 1979 in the Middle
East. I think Truman said.
(26:42):
The only thing new in the world is the history you don't know
and a a a real basis and understanding of why we are
where we are and not just your. Your immediate emotional
reaction to a situation strikes me as something very necessary.
(27:03):
A prudent character of leadership, General Mattis, if,
if we are going to deal with theregime that is in place and we
are not going to do it without our allies, what is the best
posture for the United States given where we are now, which is
a position that has essentially alienated our allies?
(27:29):
Is there a method or a mechanismfor repair?
For trust rebuilding it is. Is there a path forward?
Yeah, and you go to the heart ofit right there.
There's a saying about trust. It departs on a horse at a
gallop. It comes back at a very slow
(27:50):
walk. It's going to take us probably
8-12 years, I would estimate. And I'm using those numbers
because I've talked to leaders in other parts of the world,
thought leaders, political leaders, military leaders.
And I get the sense it's going to take us 8 to 12 years to
restore the levels of trust thatthe allies believe that we are
(28:12):
once again someone they can count on.
There were times when they thought, well, we had one
pregnant come in they couldn't get along with.
And they thought, well, we'll watch it and, and something
would happen and they'd say, well, I guess we can deal with
this new guy and whatever it's going this time.
We've really had a rough go withour allies.
(28:36):
We've treated them poorly. And I think it's going to take a
while to recover, but it's goingto be by giving our word on
something and living up to it and going back to a strategic
approach and a strategic approach for those who get
concerned that I'm talking military, a strategic approach
starts with diplomacy. It includes the military because
(28:59):
our diplomats need a strong military to speak with
authority. It also includes things like our
economy, our trade relations, our education system that brings
people here. All these things work together
for a good strategic outcome. And a good strategy is an
appetite suppressant to war. It is not an appetite increasing
(29:27):
tool because you don't go off and do silly things if you've
got a strategy because it sets priorities and you don't do
something. For example, reopen Russian oil,
take sanctions off Russian oil, because you know that's a key
problem for Europe right now. You don't do certain things that
(29:48):
end up actually causing you moreproblems down the road.
So we're going to have to get back to thinking strategically
and giving our word and living up to it, I mean.
We do have a national security strategy that was published and
it was a essentially a, a, a love letter to the Monroe
Doctrine, which said that we would just focus on our
hemisphere. So the strategy was there.
(30:10):
But you know, you say if we're going to get back to a strategic
approach that suggests that's not what we're following now,
what are we doing now if we're not being strategic?
Well, I'd I'd point out that globalization is not a policy,
it's a reality. The I I'm all for spending more
time with our neighbors and engaging more with them
(30:32):
diplomatically, more with them on commerce, that sort of thing.
Very few of our, our hemisphere's problems have
military solutions. So it wouldn't involve a, a big
military effort at all perhaps. But the bottom line is we can't
say that the rest of the world, we, we can just kind of not pay
(30:52):
much attention to. I mean, right now we've got a
significant part of the US Navy in the Middle East and I don't
remember that being mentioned much in the strategy that you're
referring to. So we're still strategy free in
what we're doing. You mentioned easing the
sanctions on Russian oil. President Zelensky said that
that certainly does not help peace and only strengthens
(31:15):
Russia's position. It sounds like you agree.
How is China reading these actions?
Well, China is benefiting from alot of this, and Russia is
benefiting militarily because weapons that could have been
given to Ukraine are not being given, are being used in other
(31:36):
places, that sort of thing. Economically, Russia is
benefiting China had been rightly called characterized as
the number one enabler of Russia's attack on Ukraine by
NATO as as said that. So what you have is the Pacific
Fleet losing elements and weaponry going into the Middle
(31:59):
East. That's not available to our
commander in the Pacific theater.
So right now, China and Russia are probably benefiting from
this war. Ryan today, as President Trump
tests the limits of executive power and lawmakers face
(32:20):
investigation for reminding troops that they do not have to
obey illegal orders, what is theduty of those who are serving in
the military? As as General Mattis has said,
I, I think your duty is to hold the line to, to live up to the
values that you were taught, theoath that you swore to, to, to
(32:44):
do with the Stoics, you know, talk over and over and over
again, which is, you know, you do the right thing, Mark Schuler
says in meditations. Whether you're cold or you're
warm, whether you're tired or you're hungry, whether you're
loved for it or despised for it,you got to do the right thing.
You got to do what you were trained to do.
And so I, I think these are, these are timeless struggles.
(33:10):
These are timeless, thorny, thorny questions.
But we have to have both the, the willingness to, to, to look
backwards and study and learn from them.
And then we have to have the sort of courage and the
conviction to to make those hardright decisions when they fall
upon us. Last one, General Mattis, you
carried famously stoke philosopher Marcus Aurelius
(33:32):
Meditations in your rucksack on the battlefield in Iraq.
If you were to pull it out now, what would you reach for?
Well, good question. I I would just tell you that you
you need to have a code that you're going to live by.
(33:54):
You would reach for whatever is going to allow you to keep a
quiet mind as you consider strategically what is going on.
Do the best you can while you'rethere and keep the faith.
Doubt your doubts. Don't doubt the Constitution.
The Constitution will hold and we will get through this.
(34:15):
It's not dark times. It's a tough time.
It's a testing time. It's not a dark time.
All right, we have 10 minutes for questions.
Go for it. So the idea of America is
informed citizenry makes decisions through the electoral
process. But we have such a fragmented
(34:36):
media environment where everybody has a different idea
of what the truth is and the competition for ideas.
Emotion sells better than than thoughts.
So how do we have an informed citizenry to make the decisions
it? It it is very easy to to
despair, to say hey, that the media environment is stacked
(34:59):
against us. The political environment is
stacked against us. We don't have people like we
used to. One of my favorite novels is the
the movie Goer by Walker Percy. There's this stoic inspired
character in it on Emily and shesays, you know, the age of
Cato's is past. She's sort of lamenting, you
know, even this is 6070 years ago that, that we don't have any
(35:20):
of those sort of great Romanesque figures anymore.
But when I I reread that book recently, I actually thought of
of General Mattis's line about how the enemy gets a vote.
We also get to decide if the ageof Cato's is over.
We get to decide if there are any bright spots or green
sprouts or any leaders of character out there.
(35:40):
And we get to decide that by choosing to be 1.
As you said, it's, it's not a spectator sport.
It's a, it's a game we're supposed to be participating in.
And, and the ancients, the greatphilosophers were in the arena
literally and figuratively. They weren't just talking about
the stuff they were, they were trying to, to make a difference
in the communities, the countries that they lived in.
(36:03):
And, and if you want to see goodin the world, like be a good
person in the world, be a virtue, be a leader of virtue
and character. And it's always important to
remember that that sends a strong signal.
It sends a strong signal throughthe people who are on the
sidelines who don't think that an individual can make a
difference. And that's that's how I think we
(36:24):
turn things around. General Mattis, Ryan Holiday,
thank you for joining us here atthe Hoover Institution for a
special edition of Firing Line. It's an honor.
Thank you.
Here's the problem. Targetry does not take the place
of strategy. And right now, whether or not we
have a strategy to actually use diplomacy, economics, allies,
allies, allies is still to be proven.
I think it would be very unlikely that this regime would
break right now. That's former Defense Secretary
(00:26):
Jim Mattis assessing America's operations in Iran.
I'm Margaret Hoover. This is THE FIRING Line podcast.
We will keep pushing, keep advancing.
No quarter, no mercy for our enemies.
After three weeks of US and Israeli airstrikes, the Iranian
(00:50):
regime is showing no signs of collapsing.
We never asked for a ceasefire and we have never asked even for
negotiation. And the costs of the conflict
are being felt around the world.Why can't the US just
immediately reopen the Strait ofHormuz?
Well, we could, but it takes 2 to tango.
(01:12):
Jim Mattis commanded troops in Iraq and Afghanistan as a Marine
Corps general, confronted Iranian aggression as commander
of U.S. Central Command before serving
as President Trump's first Defense Secretary.
The American president a week ago called it a little
excursion. But they are fighting for their
lives. The mullahs are because the
people probably will kill them if they overthrow them.
(01:33):
Ryan Holiday is a best selling author, the popular host of the
podcast The Daily Stoic, and an expert on the ancient philosophy
that has guided General Mattis throughout his storied career.
I think we are dealing with the consequences of the sort of
celebration and the raising up of passion and emotion and
impulse and gut which the Stoicswould have told us to be quite
(01:57):
suspicious of. I sat down with them both at the
Hoover Institution at Stanford University to discuss the state
of the war, the virtues of military leadership, and the
challenges that lie ahead. We need a very strong military
to defend this idea of a democracy.
But at the same time, if we don't use all of our strengths
(02:18):
and there I would point to allies without them, we're not
going to get there. General Jim Mattis, Ryan
Holiday, welcome to this specialtaping of Firing Line at the
Hoover Institution, where, General Mattis, you serve as a
senior fellow and I am privileged to serve on the Board
of Overseers. It is especially meaningful to
(02:40):
have you here now, General Mattis, as somebody who spent 40
years in the military studying Iran, and Ryan, as someone who
thinks deeply and writes frequently about the
relationships between leaders and the people they lead.
General Mattis, you first dealt with Iran in 1979 when you were
(03:03):
stationed in the Indian Ocean during the hostage crisis at the
US Embassy in Tehran. What have you learned about your
engagement with Iran and the enemy that America is now
fighting? Well, first of all, the Iran
regime that we are fighting, we are not fighting the Iranian
(03:25):
people, 8090% of them would get rid of that regime just as fast
or faster than we would. And you'd have to go a long way
to find someone who dislikes that regime more than me because
I was stationed at the Naval Academy prep school in the early
80s. And I had to do 7 of the next of
kin notifications to moms and dads in Rhode Island whose sons
(03:51):
were killed in the Marine Peacekeeper barrack when the
French paratroopers and the Marines were attacked there in
in that bombing. And that was done directly at
the behest and direction of the Iranian regime.
And it starts there. They declared war on us through
their proxies and they have beenat war with us ever since.
(04:12):
You probably could never make any a charge that this is an
illegal or war that we are conducting right now, because I
can give you the murderous attacks that go over decades
that they have conducted not just against the Americans, but
against Israelis, against Arabs.I mean, the the list is very,
(04:32):
very long. So what you see right now, what
we have learned to answer your question is you've got a regime
there that is irrational. It is based on external threats
because internally they would bevoted out if there was any kind
of a fair vote. The only people who get to run
(04:53):
for office there have to be approved by the mullahs who are
in charge, and there is probablyno end to their hostility with
that regime in charge. We have seen one administration
after another try to find what Icall the the fruitless pursuit
(05:15):
of the Iranian moderate somewhere in that regime, and we
haven't found him yet. OK, It doesn't exist.
This is a regime. Like if, if the CIA is analyzing
the regime to show you how we learn about them, they have a
list of what are the indicators of an autocrat staying in power.
There's over 70 indicators and they look at all these things.
(05:38):
One of them, one of those indicators outweighs all the
rest. Will the regime murder their own
people at the industrial level? If they will, they're going to
stay in power. If you have an unarmed
population up against a very well armed regime that is
fighting a Total War right now, Total War, we're fighting a
(06:01):
limited war. The American president a week
ago called it a little excursion.
But they are fighting for their lives.
The mullahs are because the people probably will kill them
if they overthrow them. They're, they're just that angry
at them. So they're fighting like that.
What do we, what have we learnedfrom it?
It's going to be a darn difficult problem, a darn
(06:23):
difficult problem. I hope we learned it.
I don't know if our actions to date by what can only be
considered a highly effective U.S. military is matched by the
strategic framework within whichthey're operating.
That goes beyond the military aspect.
So in the last three weeks, the Air Force, the Navy and Marine
aviators have flown more than 8000 missions, combat fights.
(06:47):
They've struck more than 7800 targets, damaged or destroyed
more than 120 naval vessels in the Iranian Navy.
And yet newly reported assessments suggest that the
Iranian regime is not budging. They are not, quote, UN quote,
not cracking, and they are willing to fight to the end.
(07:09):
So, General Mattis, is what you're saying, that the posture
of the Iranian regime at this moment will be on, will continue
to be unyielding? Well, let's, let's start with
the problem. It's the regime.
There are 5 military threats. The nuclear weapons program, not
nuclear program, Nuclear weaponsprogram, which we set back some
(07:33):
months ago, allegedly obliterated it.
Well, apparently came back in a hurry.
That's been set back further. You've got the maritime threat
ships, any ship, cruise missiles, mines, that sort of
thing that's been set back. Navies are capital intensive.
They've lost theirs to reconstitute it.
It's going to take a lot of money and a lot of time, but
(07:55):
they don't need a Navy to lay mines or shoot any ship.
Cruise missiles from the from the the land.
The ballistic missile problem had been set back.
They've fired a lot of them. We've taken out a lot and we've
taken out a lot of their production capability.
Then you got the cyber problem. Look what happened to Stryker
medical equipment and how we just got them shut down.
(08:16):
Big, big attack that is still intact, but we can fight against
that. That's not going to determine
anything right now. Then you've got the proxies, you
know them as Lebanese, Hezbollah, Hamas, PIJ, Houthis,
that sort of thing, plus lone wolves who are inspired.
They, the military side has donethat.
(08:37):
Here's the problem. Targetry does not take the place
of strategy. And right now, whether or not we
have a strategy to actually use diplomacy, economics, allies,
allies, allies is still to be proven.
Is it your understanding, based on what you know of the Iranian
(08:58):
regime, that it is it? It seems plausible that their
will is unbroken. I think it would be very
unlikely that this regime would break right now.
But like Hemingway's point abouthow a man went broke gradually
and then suddenly, you know it, it is a very fragile regime in
(09:24):
terms of its grip, but it's strong enough with its murder
and all. They've told, for example,
they've told the Iranian parents, don't let your sons and
daughters demonstrate because wewill shoot them.
We will you, we will go after them.
So no, they're not going to go away anywhere right?
Right now, I would not think that they're going to break.
So you've summarized one of yourleadership techniques as and
(09:48):
especially on the battlefield asclearly stating the purpose
sparsely outlining the methods that are to be used, and then by
explaining the desired end stateof any mission.
So how do you understand as a civilian now the Operation Epic
(10:10):
Furies purpose and desired end state?
As you can see, the lady does her homework.
The it's murky. It it, it is murky right now to
understand what we in the military call the commander's
intent. The first couple sentences are
(10:31):
my aim is, and you fill it in and the last couple sentences
are at the end of this, we will have accomplished this.
And in the method, the method you give just enough to tell the
Secretary of State, Secretary ofTreasury, Secretary of Defense,
what you want them to do to carry that out.
And we've heard things like unconditional surrender.
(10:53):
We will select the next leader, take out their Navy, we've done
that. Take out their ballistic
missiles, we've done that. We've heard all sorts of things,
frankly. And it's been murky.
And it's hard to, it's hard to articulate a, an end state
that's achievable. For example, as the American
(11:15):
president has said, it just takes a couple people to screw
up the Gulf because they can getdown there in their fishing
boats and drop mines in. And Lloyd's of London injects
the insurance rates up and people don't want to send their
ships through. And for the American president
to say, well, you know, they're just going to have to show guts.
Let me tell you, I've been in minefields and I hate them.
(11:38):
And every ship can be a minesweeper once, but that's not
the way you want to find the minds, I guarantee you.
So right now, yeah, it it, it's pretty confused.
Ryan, you're also, you're also acommunications expert.
And one of the things General Mattis has always said is as
that. And you, you said this to me
when you were first on the firing line in 2019.
(11:59):
You said you have to get out in front of the American people and
you have to persuade them. You have to have a vigorous
debate. People have to debate why
they're engaging and then they have to be informed.
Ryan, from a communications standpoint, is there still an
opportunity to communicate with the with the American public?
Well, probably seems murky because it is murky and we have
(12:21):
this sort of part of our cultureright now that that seems to
think that planning and strategyand perspective.
And I mean, if one of the richest people in the world
saying that empathy is going to be the downfall of Western
civilization and another big Silicon Valley person say, you
know, I have 0 introspection, I move forward, I never look
(12:44):
backwards, which, by the way, isnot what introspection is.
Introspection is looking inwards.
And a little bit of introspection probably would
have saved Marc Andreessen the scandal that came from those
remarks. Just thinking about how they
might come off. But, but, but the, the point is
like, you're not an egghead or aloser or dweeb because you want
(13:06):
to step back and think about things and you want to have a
plan because ultimately you haveto communicate those plans to,
to the people down the line. And, and I think we are dealing
with the consequences of the sort of celebration and the
raising up of passion and emotion and impulse and gut,
(13:28):
which which the Stoics would have told us to be quite
suspicious of. And we're, and we're, we're
raising that up over strategic thinking, forethought, expert
knowledge, you know, a sense of history.
And then, and then of course, I think the, the, the, the big
thing we're missing is humility,right?
(13:50):
A sense of limitations, a sense of weakness.
This isn't to say that, that younever proceed because you're no
humility allows you to proceed confidently, knowing that you
have a plan that matches strength against weakness, as
opposed to the delusion that egobrings, which is in complete
(14:12):
ignorance of your vulnerabilities and weaknesses.
And I think we are, we are dealing with that.
The focus on American engagementin Iran has now shifted to the
Strait of Hormuz. General Mattis, is there an end
state that you can imagine our country could live with now that
(14:35):
is achievable? I think we would have to go into
a negotiation. I think we would want as many
allies on our side because we'd want to bring economic
instruments and diplomatic instruments to bear in a way to
restrain the Iranian regime's impulse to export terror and and
(14:58):
that sort of thing. So right now, we would want to
make certain that the nuclear weapons program was not
restarted. They would want to make certain
they could export oil. We would want to make certain
they're not going to restart their ballistic missile program.
They would want to make certain they're not going to be subject
to attack. I can see the shifting positions
(15:18):
on each side, that some of them are hard and some of them are
perhaps negotiable. I don't know that Israel has
that sort of flexibility in mindbecause of their proximity to a
country regime that is sworn to wipe them off the face of the
earth, but I can see the generaloutline of what it would be in
(15:41):
terms of the negotiation. I cannot see right now the
leadership on either side being strategic in thinking and thus
seeing a way, a way to do this while the Iranian regime from
their perspective stays in powerand the American president
(16:04):
believes he doesn't show weakness.
I I can't see how we get there, but I can see what it would look
like. That is an end state with this
current regime in place. Do you do you think it is
plausible, given the amount of coordination and frankly sort of
military prowess that has been demonstrated by our military and
(16:26):
the Israeli military, that how would you estimate the
likelihood of the regime's falling?
I do not believe the regime willfall in the near future.
Now understand war is fundamentally unpredictable.
Fundamentally, that is part of war.
(16:48):
So what I'm saying could be completely reversed in 24 hours.
But I think it is very unlikely that that regime will fall
anytime soon. I think we're going to have to
deal with it. And you know one thing about the
greatest generation coming home from World War 2, they've been
raised in a global depression. They've been through a war that
(17:11):
killed hundreds of thousands of their buddies.
They knew it was a crummy world,and like it or not, we were part
of it. You're going to have to deal
with it. So how do you deal with it?
I'd suggest that America has gotsome of the greatest strengths.
Our economy, our education system.
We have ways of engaging with the world no other country has.
(17:35):
And yes, we need a very strong military to defend this, this
idea of a democracy. But at the same time, if we
don't use all of our strengths and there I would point to
allies without them, we're not going to, we're not going to get
there. But, but so you, you have, you
have mentioned allies. You you mentioned them all the
(17:58):
time throughout the course of your career.
Actually, even in your memoir, you reflected on the fact that
the only time NATO and Article 5has been invoked was by the
United States for our allies to come to our defence.
In response to 911. You, you constantly refer to the
29 allies who responded on our behalf to 911.
(18:18):
You point to the Defend ISIS coalition, which was 74
countries. You point to the 50 country
coalition that served under General Petraeus in Afghanistan.
You say in your memoir, nations with allies thrive.
Those without them die. Whether we like it or not, we
are part of a world that needs allies.
And yet President Trump has saidwe don't need anybody.
(18:43):
We're the strongest nation in the world.
So can the United States succeedin this war without allies other
than Israel? No.
What is your sense of the biggest concerns from our allies
right now? Well, there are many of the same
concerns that we hear from our our fellow citizens.
(19:06):
America is becoming predatory. America is is unreliable.
They say one thing and then theychange seven days later or two
days later. So there's a sense that we are
not a reliable security partner right now.
And your point about the first time NATO went to war was after
(19:27):
we were attacked. And one of the countries that
lost as many boys per capita fighting alongside us after
America was attacked on 9/11 wasDenmark.
And Denmark is, of course, the country that that owns
Greenland. So when you think of a threat
(19:47):
against a NATO ally, or when youhear that we're putting tariffs
on allies, at the same time we're demanding they increase
their defense expenditures, which requires A robust economy.
You're seeing a strategic disconnect and right now, many
of what what many of the actionswe're taking unfortunately mean
(20:12):
that we're working against our own strategic outcome at the
end. And you can't bring allies on
board if they don't trust you. George Shultz, who many of you
know was part here of Hoover formany, many years, one of only
two Americans who held four cabinet level positions in his
(20:34):
lifetime, actually in our history, one of only two that do
that. I only held one position and I'm
still in therapy from it. And he used to say this.
He used to say that trust is thecoin of the realm when it comes
to relations between people. With trust in the room, you can
(20:54):
do just about anything. Without it, you can do just
about nothing. We're going to have to deal with
this threat by this aberrant, bizarre, murderous regime in
Tehran, and we're going to do itat the end of the day with
allies, lots of allies. Ryan, in 2021, you welcomed then
(21:14):
Major General Dan Kane, who is now currently the Chairman of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to your wildly popular Daily Stoic
podcast. How does the man who is now
supervising America's military engagement around the world rely
(21:35):
on Stoicism? I I imagine it is a difficult
position that he finds himself in.
You don't get to choose your boss in the military or in any
part of the world, right? You don't get to choose your
boss, but you do choose how you decide to serve them.
I, I, I think he's done an an admirable job being the the
(21:57):
voice of reason when he can. He seems to be someone in
command of himself. You don't see him engaged in
backstabbing or attention seeking behaviour.
You, you see him when he addresses the press doing so
respectfully, doing so, you know, with a, a, a certain
(22:20):
amount of humility and gravitas given the the, the nature of of
what what he's dealing with. And I, I'd, I'd like to think
and, and you know that, and I doknow his sort of personal study
of the Stoics has, has informed that approach.
And you want to go back to, to the jobs that these types of
people had 2000 years ago. Marx Realist is the emperor of
(22:43):
Rome. Seneca is the advisor to Nero.
Cato is there as Caesar attemptsto overthrow the Republic.
The, the Stoics were there in the thick of the thick of things
in good times and in bad and tried to do the, the best they
could. They tried to do their duty as
they, as they understood it. And that's what I understand
(23:04):
General Kane is doing. General Mattis, in 1979, not
only were you in the Indian Ocean, but it was one month
after the Shah fled Iran after the Islamic the Islamic
Revolution that General Al Haig joined William F Buckley Junior
as a guest on the original Firing Line.
(23:27):
I'd like you to listen to a short clip from General Haig
reflecting on what happened in the Iranian Revolution.
Take a look. I have been concerned about Iran
for a matter of weeks. I suspect I've been as guilty as
most anyone with respect to the ultimate outcome with which we
are now faced. In what sense were you guilty?
(23:47):
Well, I I think the, the compression of events that we've
observed here over the past two months exceeded even the most
pessimistic of concerns that I certainly have and most anyone
in the West. This is one month after the Shah
has fled Iran, Buckley says. In what sense are you guilty?
(24:09):
And Haig says, I think the compare the compression of
events we've observed here over the past two months exceeded
even the most pessimistic concerns.
Is this a reflection on unpredictability in war?
That and some other things. But what happened in 1979 when
(24:33):
this is being filmed is that changed everything in the Middle
East. Go back to those days the
Soviets invade Afghanistan and threatened to move against the
Straits of Hormuz. At least that was a concern.
President Carter completely changes his view of the Soviet
Union and what he thought peoplehe'd been off for aiding with
(24:54):
their in good faith. He realizes he's been taken to
the cleaners in Iran. The Shah falls and this regime
that we're now dealing with comes in some 47 years ago.
Whatever it is the, the Grand Mosque falls to the nut cases,
the political Islamists, the terror, what what eventually
(25:16):
becomes the Sunni side of the terrorist organizations coming
out of the Mideast. And so out of that, the question
when this war started some couple of weeks ago, were we
going to fundamentally change on, from a strategic point of
view, fundamentally change the construct of the Middle East?
(25:38):
Israel, using hard power, had basically shattered 2 of the
militias of three PIJ and Hamas and Gaza and Lebanese Hezbollah
have been handled pretty roughlythere by the Israeli military.
And was there an opportunity nowto rock them back so far on
their heels that the regime would fall?
(25:59):
That obviously has not happened,although it's been defanged in
terms of its proxies, in terms of its nuclear program has been
set back, Navy sunk, you know, the ballistic missiles set back
this sort of thing. But the regime is still there.
So basically the war on a strategic level has not changed
the overarching framing principle of what we have to
(26:21):
deal with in that area, and we will have to deal with it.
We can't walk away and say sorry, we got distracted or we
got tired of this. We're going to have to deal with
whatever comes out of this current war.
And I think it's going to include that regime still there
that goes back to that, that fateful year, 1979 in the Middle
East. I think Truman said.
(26:42):
The only thing new in the world is the history you don't know
and a a a real basis and understanding of why we are
where we are and not just your. Your immediate emotional
reaction to a situation strikes me as something very necessary.
(27:03):
A prudent character of leadership, General Mattis, if,
if we are going to deal with theregime that is in place and we
are not going to do it without our allies, what is the best
posture for the United States given where we are now, which is
a position that has essentially alienated our allies?
(27:29):
Is there a method or a mechanismfor repair?
For trust rebuilding it is. Is there a path forward?
Yeah, and you go to the heart ofit right there.
There's a saying about trust. It departs on a horse at a
gallop. It comes back at a very slow
(27:50):
walk. It's going to take us probably
8-12 years, I would estimate. And I'm using those numbers
because I've talked to leaders in other parts of the world,
thought leaders, political leaders, military leaders.
And I get the sense it's going to take us 8 to 12 years to
restore the levels of trust thatthe allies believe that we are
(28:12):
once again someone they can count on.
There were times when they thought, well, we had one
pregnant come in they couldn't get along with.
And they thought, well, we'll watch it and, and something
would happen and they'd say, well, I guess we can deal with
this new guy and whatever it's going this time.
We've really had a rough go withour allies.
(28:36):
We've treated them poorly. And I think it's going to take a
while to recover, but it's goingto be by giving our word on
something and living up to it and going back to a strategic
approach and a strategic approach for those who get
concerned that I'm talking military, a strategic approach
starts with diplomacy. It includes the military because
(28:59):
our diplomats need a strong military to speak with
authority. It also includes things like our
economy, our trade relations, our education system that brings
people here. All these things work together
for a good strategic outcome. And a good strategy is an
appetite suppressant to war. It is not an appetite increasing
(29:27):
tool because you don't go off and do silly things if you've
got a strategy because it sets priorities and you don't do
something. For example, reopen Russian oil,
take sanctions off Russian oil, because you know that's a key
problem for Europe right now. You don't do certain things that
(29:48):
end up actually causing you moreproblems down the road.
So we're going to have to get back to thinking strategically
and giving our word and living up to it, I mean.
We do have a national security strategy that was published and
it was a essentially a, a, a love letter to the Monroe
Doctrine, which said that we would just focus on our
hemisphere. So the strategy was there.
(30:10):
But you know, you say if we're going to get back to a strategic
approach that suggests that's not what we're following now,
what are we doing now if we're not being strategic?
Well, I'd I'd point out that globalization is not a policy,
it's a reality. The I I'm all for spending more
time with our neighbors and engaging more with them
(30:32):
diplomatically, more with them on commerce, that sort of thing.
Very few of our, our hemisphere's problems have
military solutions. So it wouldn't involve a, a big
military effort at all perhaps. But the bottom line is we can't
say that the rest of the world, we, we can just kind of not pay
(30:52):
much attention to. I mean, right now we've got a
significant part of the US Navy in the Middle East and I don't
remember that being mentioned much in the strategy that you're
referring to. So we're still strategy free in
what we're doing. You mentioned easing the
sanctions on Russian oil. President Zelensky said that
that certainly does not help peace and only strengthens
(31:15):
Russia's position. It sounds like you agree.
How is China reading these actions?
Well, China is benefiting from alot of this, and Russia is
benefiting militarily because weapons that could have been
given to Ukraine are not being given, are being used in other
(31:36):
places, that sort of thing. Economically, Russia is
benefiting China had been rightly called characterized as
the number one enabler of Russia's attack on Ukraine by
NATO as as said that. So what you have is the Pacific
Fleet losing elements and weaponry going into the Middle
(31:59):
East. That's not available to our
commander in the Pacific theater.
So right now, China and Russia are probably benefiting from
this war. Ryan today, as President Trump
tests the limits of executive power and lawmakers face
(32:20):
investigation for reminding troops that they do not have to
obey illegal orders, what is theduty of those who are serving in
the military? As as General Mattis has said,
I, I think your duty is to hold the line to, to live up to the
values that you were taught, theoath that you swore to, to, to
(32:44):
do with the Stoics, you know, talk over and over and over
again, which is, you know, you do the right thing, Mark Schuler
says in meditations. Whether you're cold or you're
warm, whether you're tired or you're hungry, whether you're
loved for it or despised for it,you got to do the right thing.
You got to do what you were trained to do.
And so I, I think these are, these are timeless struggles.
(33:10):
These are timeless, thorny, thorny questions.
But we have to have both the, the willingness to, to, to look
backwards and study and learn from them.
And then we have to have the sort of courage and the
conviction to to make those hardright decisions when they fall
upon us. Last one, General Mattis, you
carried famously stoke philosopher Marcus Aurelius
(33:32):
Meditations in your rucksack on the battlefield in Iraq.
If you were to pull it out now, what would you reach for?
Well, good question. I I would just tell you that you
you need to have a code that you're going to live by.
(33:54):
You would reach for whatever is going to allow you to keep a
quiet mind as you consider strategically what is going on.
Do the best you can while you'rethere and keep the faith.
Doubt your doubts. Don't doubt the Constitution.
The Constitution will hold and we will get through this.
(34:15):
It's not dark times. It's a tough time.
It's a testing time. It's not a dark time.
All right, we have 10 minutes for questions.
Go for it. So the idea of America is
informed citizenry makes decisions through the electoral
process. But we have such a fragmented
(34:36):
media environment where everybody has a different idea
of what the truth is and the competition for ideas.
Emotion sells better than than thoughts.
So how do we have an informed citizenry to make the decisions
it? It it is very easy to to
despair, to say hey, that the media environment is stacked
(34:59):
against us. The political environment is
stacked against us. We don't have people like we
used to. One of my favorite novels is the
the movie Goer by Walker Percy. There's this stoic inspired
character in it on Emily and shesays, you know, the age of
Cato's is past. She's sort of lamenting, you
know, even this is 6070 years ago that, that we don't have any
(35:20):
of those sort of great Romanesque figures anymore.
But when I I reread that book recently, I actually thought of
of General Mattis's line about how the enemy gets a vote.
We also get to decide if the ageof Cato's is over.
We get to decide if there are any bright spots or green
sprouts or any leaders of character out there.
(35:40):
And we get to decide that by choosing to be 1.
As you said, it's, it's not a spectator sport.
It's a, it's a game we're supposed to be participating in.
And, and the ancients, the greatphilosophers were in the arena
literally and figuratively. They weren't just talking about
the stuff they were, they were trying to, to make a difference
in the communities, the countries that they lived in.
(36:03):
And, and if you want to see goodin the world, like be a good
person in the world, be a virtue, be a leader of virtue
and character. And it's always important to
remember that that sends a strong signal.
It sends a strong signal throughthe people who are on the
sidelines who don't think that an individual can make a
difference. And that's that's how I think we
(36:24):
turn things around. General Mattis, Ryan Holiday,
thank you for joining us here atthe Hoover Institution for a
special edition of Firing Line. It's an honor.
Thank you.
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