In November 2012, Marine Gen. James Mattis delivered an urgent message: An Iranian fighter jet had fired errantly on a U.S. drone flying over the Persian Gulf. In a memoir, Former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta wrote of the incident saying, "I could sense that Mattis did not want to back down... As I already knew, the White House didn't fully trust Mattis, regarding him as too eager for a military confrontation with Iran."
