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Article snippet: WASHINGTON — Days before President Trump has to make a critical decision on whether to hold up the Iran nuclear deal, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis openly split with him on abandoning the agreement, the second senior member of the president’s national security team to recently contradict him. Mr. Mattis told senators on Tuesday that it was in America’s interest to stick with the deal, which Mr. Trump has often dismissed as a “disaster.” “Absent indications to the contrary, it is something that the president should consider staying with,” Mr. Mattis told members of the Senate Armed Services Committee after being repeatedly pressed on the issue. The comments were the latest example of how Mr. Trump’s instincts on national security — to threaten North Korea with destruction and tear up an Iran accord that most experts and allies say is working — are running headlong into opposition from his own National Security Council. But rather than keep those arguments inside the White House Situation Room, where similar battles have played out over many presidencies, Mr. Trump’s key advisers are making no secret of their disagreements with their boss. Mr. Mattis came to office with well-established, hawkish views of Iran, whose support of Syria’s government and of Hezbollah, he believed, had cost American lives. But he has always taken the position that if he had to confront Iran, he would rather confront a non-nuclear Iran, and that the agreement was preventing the country fro... Link to the full article to read more