“Just doing what I said I was going to do!” Trump said.

The contrasting styles and statements of a president with isolationist tendencies and a Pentagon chief inclined to build relationships with allies underscore how difficult it will be to assess future roles for the U.S. military following Mattis’s Dec. 20 resignation.

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Perhaps no better subject illustrates that recently than the war in Syria, in which Trump ordered a withdrawal of U.S. troops last week, prompting Mattis’s resignation. The president even took the unusual step of posting a video on his Twitter account to make his case.

“Our boys, our young women, our men, they’re all coming back and they’re coming back now,” Trump said in the video. “We won.”

The president seemingly softened his stance Monday, saying that troops will come home “slowly” from Syria. He added that Islamic State fighters were “mostly gone,” a shift from earlier professions that ISIS already has been defeated.

For nearly two years as Pentagon chief, Mattis has stressed the need to stay engaged with allies abroad, going so far as to compare the isolationist tendencies of some Americans now to those in 1930s, just ahead of World War II. America was happy at one time “between our two oceans,” but realized after “what a crummy world if we all retreat inside our own borders,” Mattis said last year in Singapore.

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Trump, meanwhile, has questioned not only deployments to war zones, but the need for longtime relationships with NATO allies and South Korea.

Under Mattis, the Pentagon expanded its military operations in several locations across the globe, including Syria, Afghanistan and Somalia, and also secured larger Defense Department budgets than ever. Simultaneously, critics questioned how Mattis could stay on as defense secretary, especially after he defended a controversial deployment of active-duty U.S. troops to the southern border just days before the Nov. 6 midterm elections.

It was Trump ordering the military withdrawal from Syria that proved too much for the Pentagon chief. Though his letter did not mention Syria directly, U.S. officials around Mattis said that he believed a withdrawal would be a betrayal to Kurdish troops who have fought with U.S. backing against the Islamic State. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who views the Kurdish militia as an extension of the PKK, a far-left terrorist group, has pledged to bury Kurdish fighters in the trenches they build to fight.

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“My views on treating allies with respect and also being clear-eyed about both malign actors and strategic competitors are strongly held and informed by over four decades of immersion in these issues,” Mattis wrote in his resignation letter. “We must do everything possible to advance an international order that is most conducive to our security, prosperity and values, and we are strengthened in this effort by the solidarity of our alliances.”

The president’s latest pronouncements about Syria on Monday followed more than a week of criticism from many fronts, including quiet pressure from close ally Israel and conservative pro-Israel voters who are part of Trump’s base of support. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has urged Trump to reconsider his abrupt announcement of an end to the three-year-old mission in Syria, a senior Israeli official told reporters Monday.

Trump agreed to a gradual withdrawal rather than a sudden one, following a phone call with Netanyahu, several Israeli news outlets quoted the unidentified official as saying.

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Netanyahu is traveling in Brazil, where he will meet Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Tuesday when both attend the inauguration of populist president-elect Jair Bolsonaro. Netanyahu is expected to continue to press his case that the U.S. presence is a needed check on Iranian military proxies operating in Syria.

Netanyahu has argued for months that the threat from Iranian influence in Syria is rising, effectively placing Iranian-linked military groups at Israel’s formerly placid border with Syria. National security adviser John Bolton, who will meet separately with Netanyahu next weekend to discuss the Syria decision, had voiced the same concerns as recently as September, when he said the United States would remain in Syria so long as Iranian proxies were also on the ground there.

Trump’s decision also drew a rare rebuke from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which warned in a statement that “damage control” would be required following a U.S. withdrawal and echoed Netanyahu’s frequent demand that Iran be prevented from establishing a permanent military presence in Syria. AIPAC also retweeted bipartisan criticism of Trump’s decision that went much further than the organization’s own statement.

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The American Jewish Committee urged Trump to “stay the course” in Syria.

“The only winners will be Russia and Iran — and a resurgent Islamic State. Why would we possibly cede ground to them?” the pro-Israel organization said. “Stay the course!”

Trump’s tweets Monday suggest he had heard that criticism, although the president wrapped any softening of his hard line in grievance that he does not get the credit he deserves. He dismissed some of his critics as “some failed Generals who were unable to do the job before I arrived.”

Graham, who had emerged from lunch with Trump at the White House on Sunday to say that the president was “taking this really seriously,” later tweeted what he said are Trump’s rubrics for the mission now.

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“I learned a lot from President @realDonaldTrump about our efforts in Syria that was reassuring,” Graham wrote Sunday.

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Any plan the United States has for withdrawal from Syria will need to ensure that ISIS is permanently destroyed, that Iran does not take over territory held by ISIS now and that Kurdish allies are protected, Graham tweeted.

That appears no different from the conditions for U.S. involvement before Trump’s announcement that he was fulfilling a campaign promise by pulling out.

Mattis was to leave office Monday evening with none of the pageantry typically associated with his position. He originally planned to stay as Pentagon chief through Feb. 28 to ensure a smooth transition, but was forced earlier by Trump in a Dec. 23 decision, as the president complained about media coverage over he was receiving over the resignation. The defense secretary has said little since then, but he asked Defense Department personnel on Monday to remain “undistracted” from their mission to uphold the U.S. Constitution.

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“On February 1, 1865, President Lincoln sent to General Ulysses S. Grant a one sentence telegram. It read: ‘Let nothing which is transpiring, change, hinder, or delay your military movements, or plans.’” Mattis wrote in a memo released by the Pentagon.

“Our Department’s leadership, civilian and military, remains in the best possible hands. I am confident that each of you remains undistracted from our sworn mission to support and defend the Constitution while protecting our way of life,” Mattis continued. “Our Department is proven to be at its best when the times are most difficult. So keep the faith in our country and hold fast, alongside our allies, aligned against our foes.”

Mattis, 68, added that “it has been my high honor to serve at your side.”

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"May God hold you safe in the air, on land, and at sea,” he concluded.

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The memo did not mention Trump, and is likely to be Mattis’s last formal opportunity to say goodbye to a U.S. military that he served as a Marine for more than 40 years, rising to become a four-star general. It has echoes of a speech Mattis delivered at the May 2017 commencement ceremony at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., in which he repeatedly praised U.S. troops with the motivational phrase “you hold the line.”

Like his pointed resignation letter, Mattis’s goodbye memo stresses the need to stand alongside allies, something Trump has repeatedly questioned. Trump dismissed the concerns Mattis raised in his resignation letter Dec. 23, saying in a tweet that “many of these same countries take advantage of their friendship with the United States.”

“General Mattis did not see this as a problem,” Trump tweeted. “I DO, and it is being fixed!”

In keeping with Mattis’s wishes, the Pentagon will not hold a traditional farewell ceremony for him. Pentagon chiefs who leave office — even when forced out — typically are sent off with a ceremony in which the president plays a prominent role.

“Secretary Mattis prefers that today, like every day, the focus remain on the mission and those who carry it out,” said Dana White, the chief Pentagon spokeswoman.

In January 2015, President Barack Obama lauded departing Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel during a farewell event at Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall, a short walk from Arlington National Cemetery. Though Hagel resigned under pressure from the White House, Obama crediting him with better positioning “this institution” for the future and the two leaders embraced.

In February 2013, Obama had similarly kind words for former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta when he left his office. In another ceremony at Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall, Obama said he asked Panetta to be his defense secretary several times and believed the defense secretary helped protect the American Dream.

In June 2011, Obama told departing Defense Secretary Robert Gates during a ceremony that he had clearly been one of the best in history to hold the job. He credited him with saving American lives by pressing for mine-resistant vehicles, drones and shorter medical evacuation times in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Mattis is expected to turn over control of the department to Deputy Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan on an acting basis, with the Defense Department joining several others in the federal government with acting officials in charge amid turmoil in the Trump administration. It isn’t clear how long it will take Trump to name a permanent successor, who must be confirmed by the Senate.

The transition to Shanahan will occur before midnight Monday through a phone call, according to a defense official, speaking on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the transition. It is considered a courtesy and mark of respect for the incoming secretary, the official added.

Once the phone call is complete, the Pentagon will notify the White House that Shanahan has assumed his duties as the acting secretary. The call will follow an approved script, which the Pentagon is not authorized to release, the official said.