>He was fired but simply retire after finishing his part in the open
That's what I think.
The first phase was to lay the business/economic groundwork and Tillerson was perfect for that.
The second phase will be enforcement, thus Pompeo rather than Tillerson. Enforcement is not really Tillerson's MO and it may actually hurt his business connections if he were tied to that phase.
I think Tillerson said I'll give you a year and work on the economic groundwork.
"Firing' Tillerson when it happened sent a big message to the EU. AFAIAC that was the point when the latest run of all this weird shit started happening. EU is balls deep into the bad guys side, IMO.