U.S. President Donald Trump and then-Defense Secretary James Mattis attend a cabinet meeting in the White House on March 8, 2018. (Michael Reynolds-Pool/Getty Images)
U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis arrives for a closed intelligence briefing at the U.S. Capitol on December 13, 2018 in Washington, DC. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
US Secretary of Defense James Mattis (L), US Vice President Mike Pence (2ndL), White House Chief of Staff John Kelly (2ndR) and Pence Chief of Staff Nick Ayers (R) listen as US President Donald Trump speaks to the press before a meeting in the Pentagon January 18, 2018 in Washington, DC.(BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images)
Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces and future U.S. president, General Dwight D. Eisenhower (L) with British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery (R), his deputy commander, in an unknown location in June 1944 after Allied forces stormed the Normandy beaches.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, right, and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani at U.N. headquarters in New York on Sept. 18. (Kevin Hagen/Getty Images)
Assyrian Christians from Syria and Iraq, receive communion during a Christmas mass at Saint Georges church in an eastern suburb of the Lebanese capital Beirut, on December 25, 2015. AFP PHOTO / ANWAR AMRO / AFP / ANWAR AMRO (Photo credit should read ANWAR AMRO/AFP/Getty Images)
US President Donald Trump disembarks from Air Force One upon arrival at Hagerstown Regional Airport in Hagerstown, Maryland, August 18, 2017, as he travels for meetings at Camp David before returning to Bedminster, New Jersey to continue his vacation.
US President Donald Trump is assembling his national security team at the Camp David presidential retreat Friday to forge a way ahead in Afghanistan, almost 16 years after the war began. Trump must decide if he wants to continue on the current course, which relies on a relatively small US-led NATO force to help Afghan partners push back the Taliban, or if he wants to try a new tack such as adding more forces -- or even withdrawing altogether.
/ AFP PHOTO / SAUL LOEB (Photo credit should read SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images)
