Acting Pentagon Chief in Spotlight     06/25 06:21

   WASHINGTON (AP) -- With barely one day on the job, Acting Defense Secretary 
Mark Esper is heading to Europe to try to persuade reluctant and increasingly 
wary NATO allies to work with the Trump administration on Iran sanctions and 
security in the Middle East, amid worries that the U.S. and the Islamic 
Republic may be on a path to war.

   When he steps off his plane in Brussels on Tuesday, Esper will also have to 
assure his international counterparts and military commanders in the region 
that the U.S. military is in stable and capable hands, even though President 
Donald Trump has had three Pentagon chiefs in the past seven months.

   That's an extraordinary mission for an interim Pentagon leader at a time of 
global uncertainty about a range of U.S. defense and foreign policies --- not 
just on Iran but also on countering China and Russia, preventing a resurgence 
of the Islamic State group and ending the war in Afghanistan.

   Just in the last week the U.S. military was poised to conduct attacks on 
Iranian air defense sites in retaliation for Iran's shooting down of a U.S. 
military surveillance drone in the Strait of Hormuz. Trump called off the 
attacks at the last moment, citing the likelihood of Iranian casualties, and 
his top diplomat, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, flew to the Middle East to 
attempt to galvanize international support for tougher economic pressure on 
Tehran.

   Esper took over at the Pentagon on Monday for Pat Shanahan, who was acting 
secretary for six months but quit before he was formally nominated by Trump. 
This is by far the longest period the Pentagon has ever gone without a 
Senate-confirmed secretary. Trump's first defense chief, Jim Mattis, resigned 
in December in protest of Trump's policies and what the retired four-star 
Marine general considered Trump's destructive approach to allies.

   By coincidence, Esper's first major public appearance will be at NATO, the 
alliance that Trump has frequently bashed as a collection of freeloaders.

   The two-day NATO meeting of defense ministers will include talks on many of 
the most worrisome international security topics: possible war with Iran; the 
ongoing conflict in Afghanistan; the continued fight against Islamic State 
militants in Syria and Iraq; and tensions with Russia. Esper, who until Sunday 
evening had been serving as the civilian leader of the U.S. Army, may be 
familiar with many of the issues but to European defense ministers he is a 
relative unknown.

   "Expectations are really low. They are not going to expect him to be able to 
speak authoritatively for the president and go beyond what's in his talking 
points," said Derek Chollet, who served in senior positions at the White House, 
State Department and Pentagon during the Obama administration. On the other 
hand, the Brussels gathering allows Esper to meet many of his key counterparts 
in a short period of time --- "sort of like speed dating," Chollet said.

   Retired Navy Adm. James Stavridis, a former top NATO commander, said the 
long absence of a Senate-confirmed leader of the Pentagon has impact around the 
world, "where our most important Cabinet department is perceived as weak and 
without a strong leader." He added that senior military officers will also need 
to see a level of stability, because the repeated use of acting secretaries 
"erodes the principle of civilian control of the military."

   State Department officials said Monday the administration wants to enlist 
the help of a wider range of countries to monitor potential threats to 
commercial shipping in and near the Persian Gulf. This follows allegations --- 
denied by Iran --- that Tehran was behind recent attacks on commercial tankers 
in the Gulf of Oman.

   At NATO headquarters, Esper will face the task of explaining the U.S. 
strategy of compelling Iran through economic pressure to renegotiate the 
nuclear deal that Trump pulled out of last year. Trump wants a broader deal 
that would limit other Iranian behavior, including its support for what the 
U.S. calls terrorist groups and its buildup of ballistic missiles. Tehran, 
however, has said it will not negotiate as long as the U.S. keeps up its 
sanctions, which Trump intensified Monday by signing an executive order 
targeting Iran's supreme leader and his associates with financial penalties.

   On his first day in his new role, Esper wrote in a message to all Pentagon 
employees that the transition from Shanahan does not signal a change in 
strategic priorities, which remain the same: make the military better prepared 
for combat, strengthen international alliances, and improve the Pentagon's 
business practices.

   Katie Wheelbarger, a senior Pentagon policy adviser on international 
security, said the timing of the NATO meeting works well for Esper.

   "It's actually fortuitous that on the first week the new acting secretary is 
on the job that he will be able to have face-to-face conversations with all his 
counterparts in the alliance," she said. "We come with a message of continuity, 
that a personnel transition does not mean a change in policy, particularly no 
change in U.S. adherence and devotion to NATO."

   Wheelbarger said Esper will bring the allies up to date on the situation 
with Iran, including the intelligence information that prompted the U.S. to 
send an aircraft carrier and other military assets to the Gulf region in early 
May in response to what it called heightened Iranian threats.


(KA)