Editor’s Note: Reports such as this following are available to subscribers of Stratas Advisors’ Executive Suite services.

President-elect Donald Trump’s Defense Secretary nominee, retired Marine Corps. Gen. James “Mad Dog” Mattis, who will almost certainly receive congressional approval to take the cabinet position, should prove a judicious choice.

He will be judicious perhaps not on how to pursue an improvement in U.S. relations with Iran but in terms of providing sober assessments of the costs and potential consequences of pursuing a confrontational course of action, which could act as a check on the more bellicose impulses of other members of Trump’s cabinet.

At a national security forum in April, Mattis said that “the Iranian threat, in my mind, is the single most enduring threat to stability and peace in the Middle East.”

He conservatively assessed, however, that military action “probably could have delayed [Iran’s nuclear advances] by a year or two before we would have had to take more military action,” the details of which he left unspecified. More optimistic analysts have estimated that U.S. military strikes could set Iran’s nuclear program back by perhaps 10 years, but with few exceptions have not been candid on Iran’s retaliatory options, the likelihood that it would exercise these options, or the consequences of major Iranian retaliation.

During the same forum, Mattis dubiously argued, “I consider ISIS nothing more than an excuse for Iran to continue its mischief. Iran is not an enemy of ISIS. ... What is the one country in the region that has not been attacked by ISIS? One, and it’s Iran. ... That is more than just happenstance, I'm sure.”

Stratas Advisors concludes that the lack of ISIS attacks within Iran proper have more to do with the effectiveness of Iranian intelligence and counterterrorism forces and the difference in political, economic and social dynamics in Iran, as well as ISIS’s operational focus, than by a lack of enmity between the two.

Ironically, Iranian leaders also (inaccurately) perceive that the U.S. is supporting ISIS, pointing to the Obama administration’s support for ostensibly moderate Syrian insurgents fighting in coalition with radicals (verified) as well as several airdrops of military supplies that are alleged to have been intended for radical factions.

Mattis considered that the Iran nuclear agreement was perhaps “the best we could get,” which contradicts Trump’s repeated vociferous opposition to it as “disastrous.” He also pointed out that even if it fails, “if nothing else we’ll have better targeting data,” implicitly acknowledging one of the risks Iran took in concluding the agreement.

Mattis’s comments also indicate that he will strive to influence President Trump to be more rhetorically disciplined out of recognition of the diplomatic and security consequences a president’s words and corresponding actions (or lack thereof) can have.

In apparent reference to the Obama administration’s premature drawing of a red line on Syria and then deferring to congressional opposition instead of marshaling congressional support for it (as would have been constitutionally required before enforcing such a red line), Mattis stated, “We're going to have to be very careful about red lines in the future,” and that if the U.S. sets one it should enforce it.

Returning to the Iran nuclear agreement, Mattis contended, “There’s no going back. Absent a real violation—I mean a clear and present violation that was enough to stimulate the Europeans to action as well—I don't think that we [can say] ‘we’re not going to live up to our word on this agreement.’ I believe we would be alone if we did, and unilateral economic sanctions from us would not have anywhere near the impact of an allied approach to this.”

Regardless of his reticence to back Trump’s stated intent to renegotiate the nuclear agreement, Mattis thinks that the U.S. should increase its efforts to support agitation against the Iranian government from within. “Radio Farsi has to be dusted off and we need to go back at it. The Iranian people need to know right up front every day that we have no argument with [them]. Our concern is with the mullahs, this revolutionary cause that does not have [Iran’s] best interests in place,” he said.

Finally, the doubt stirred up by The Atlantic’s article, “The Obama Doctrine,” on the Obama administration’s commitment to U.S. regional allies and partners (highly overstated, we believe) should be laid to rest as long as Mattis retains influence in the Trump administration.

Mattis said oil is the No. 1 imperative for remaining engaged in the Middle East. He said that although U.S. imports from the region have decreased in recent years, the U.S. is tied to the world’s economy. Therefore, the U.S. has a vital interest in maintaining the stability of the flow of oil from the region.