Who would ever thought that a four-star General with the moniker Mad Dog would be the key to world peace? Well according to news reports, it seems that America’s Secretary of Defense James Norman Mattis is on the way out and the new direction our nation’s foreign policy is going to be determined by hawks like John Bolton and Mike Pompeo. Will more conflict be the result?

As I’ve said before, I don’t believe these lunatics running our country have ever been keeping anybody safe, even before Trump. They are just creating enemies and continually filling the memories of the decent people of the Middle East with fresh news headlines outlining American aggression, bigotry, and greed. So don’t get me wrong, Mattis is a warmonger. But he’s the type of warmonger you want.

Mad Dog Mattis carried a copy of Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations when he met the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan. He’s known as an intellectual that’s well prepared and gained a reputation for taking extraordinary steps to protect the lives of soldiers under his command during battle. I recently watched an interview with him where he explained his reasons for carrying the copy of Meditations and where he discussed his 7,000 book personal library. He said that Meditations was to remind him that there is nothing new under the sun and that he wanted to be ready for battle by learning from the experiences that others faced in similar instances. He believes in learning from the mistakes of others and seemed a very wise and measured man.

With the Trump Presidency, it’s always ‘Trump knows best’. He has shown he is willing to remove the best and the brightest from their jobs to achieve his goals or will. As President, his actions affect all of our lives now and in the future. Wise counsel is needed for such for any President, even him. The goal of the Secretary of State should be to promote peace and the job of the National Security Advisor should be to ensure the safety of America. Under Trump, both positions are headed in the wrong direction anyway, achieving unsatisfactory ends, blindly leading the blind and violating the Iran deal that would have guaranteed 10 years of peace with no nuclear advancement on the part of the Iranians. But things could get worse.

Behind Mattis, who has restrained the President’s worst impulses in foreign policy, are potential replacements for Secretary of Defense like John Bolton, a legendary arms manufacturer liaison and current National Security Advisor, and Mike Pompeo, Trump’s first CIA chief and current Secretary of State. They seek the advancement of war against Iran and the dismantling of its military, which they see as the only thing that could keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of the Iranian government.

Mattis is therefore, good enough for now, considering the alternatives. But if America keeps supporting bellicose people like the Trump Administration in elections, I’d say our future looks rather grim. Karma will come knocking and, whether we like it or not, we will have to answer for their ignorance. By leaving the nuclear agreement, we clearly missed a chance for our country to work on a relationship of goodwill with Iran. Many in the Iranian government are deeply suspicious of the US, even accusing the US of being behind the bomb attack that recently took the lives of 29 Iranian nationals. The real change we need, beyond Mattis and Trump, is peace.