Clear, Clarify, Hold, Build

H.R. McMaster can put counterinsurgency tactics to good use in the White House.

 Last week, Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly said during a visit to Mexico that there would be “no, repeat, no, use of military force in immigration operations. None.” This was a few hours after Mr. Trump had described his deportation policy as “a military operation.” A few days earlier, U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley insisted “we absolutely support a two-state solution” for Israelis and Palestinians, just a day after the president said he was agnostic on the subject.Before that, it was Mike Pence affirming the centrality of NATO, after his boss had called it obsolete. And Jim Mattis, promising Iraqis that the administration does not intend to take their oil, despite the countless times Mr. Trump has lamented our failure to do so. And Mike Pompeo reiterating that, yes, it was Russia that was behind the DNC leaks, and not, as Mr. Trump speculated last year, a 400-pound man in New Jersey.
 Apologists for the administration say all this is evidence of an open-minded president cultivating a team of rivals. Whatever. As Alexander Hamilton noted in the Federalist Papers, “unity of the Executive” is essential to effective government. What we have in this administration is incoherence verging on chaos.