The Room Where It Happened

by John Bolton;

  Trump had finally found someone he relished sanctioning, saying “large sanctions” would ensue if Brunson wasn’t returned to the US. On August 2, Treasury sanctioned Turkey’s Justice and Interior Ministers,3 and two days later, Turkey sanctioned their counterparts, Sessions and Nielsen, in response.4 Although we had discussed these measures with Trump, he told me later that day he thought it was insulting to Turkey to sanction Cabinet officials. Instead, he wanted to double the existing steel tariffs on Turkey to 50 percent, which appalled the economic team. Trump had imposed worldwide steel and aluminum tariffs on national-security grounds in March 2018, under the authority of section 232 of the 1962 Trade Expansion Act, a little-known statute that found great favor in Trump trade policy. The “national security” grounds were gauzy at best; the 232 tariffs were classically protectionist. To use them now for political leverage to obtain Brunson’s release violated any known statutory rationale, however worthy the cause. Trump, of course, sensed no one was going to challenge him in these circumstances. Away we went.

  The Turks, worried about escalating problems with America, wanted a way out, or so we thought, trying to wrap an exchange for Brunson into the Halkbank criminal investigation. This was at best unseemly, but Trump wanted Brunson out, so Pompeo and Mnuchin negotiated with their counterparts (Mnuchin because Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control was also looking into Halkbank).5 In three-way conversations, Mnuchin, Pompeo, and I agreed nothing would be done without full agreement from the Justice Department prosecutors in the Southern District of New York, where the case, involving over $20 billion in Iran sanctions violations, was pending. (In my days at the Justice Department, we called the Southern District the “Sovereign District of New York,” because it so often resisted control by “Main Justice,” let alone by the White House.) Several times, Mnuchin was exuberant he had reached a deal with Turkey’s Finance Minister. This was typical: Whether Mnuchin was negotiating with Turkish fraudsters or Chinese trade mandarins, a deal was always in sight. In each case, the deal fell apart when Justice tanked it, which was why trying this route to get Brunson’s release was never going to work. Pompeo said, “The Turks just can’t get out of their own way,” but it was in fact Justice prosecutors who rightly rejected deals worth next to nothing from the US government’s perspective. In the meantime, Turkey’s currency continued to depreciate rapidly, and its stock market wasn’t doing much better.

  We had a problem with multiple negotiators on both sides. Haley was conducting conversations with Turkey’s UN Ambassador, which the Turks said they didn’t understand. Neither did we. Pompeo said grimly he would resolve this problem by telling Haley to stop making unauthorized contacts with the Turks, confusing further what was already confused enough. Fortunately, this time it worked. Diplomatic efforts, however, produced nothing on Brunson. Trump allowed the negotiations to continue, but his instinct on Erdogan proved correct: only economic and political pressure would get Brunson released, and here at least Trump had no problem applying it despite Mnuchin’s happy talk. Erdogan went almost instantly from being one of Trump’s best international buddies to being a target of vehement hostility. It kept my hopes alive that Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, Kim Jong Un, or others would, in due course, inevitably show Trump their true colors, and we could at that moment reconnect our errant policies to reality. Also possible, of course, was Trump’s returning again to “best buddy” mode, which did in fact happen here just a few months later. Ironically, although the media painted Trump as viscerally anti-Muslim, he never grasped—despite repeated efforts by key allied leaders in Europe and the Middle East and his own advisors to explain it—that Erdogan was himself a radical Islamicist. He was busy transforming Turkey from Kemal Ataturk’s secular state into an Islamicist state. He supported the Muslim Brotherhood and other radicals across the Middle East, financing both Hamas and Hezbollah, not to mention being intensely hostile toward Israel, and he helped Iran to evade US sanctions. It never seemed to get through.

  In the meantime, Trump tired of Turkish delays and obfuscation, and on August 10, dubious legal authority notwithstanding, he ordered Turkey’s steel tariffs doubled to 50 percent and the aluminum tariffs doubled to 20 percent, probably the first time in history tariffs were raised by tweet:

  I have just authorized a doubling of Tariffs on Steel and Aluminum with respect to Turkey as their currency, the Turkish Lira, slides rapidly downward against our very strong Dollar! Aluminum will now be 20% and Steel 50%. Our relations with Turkey are not good at this time!

  Turkey retaliated with its own tariffs, and Trump responded by requesting more sanctions. Mnuchin tried to slow-roll Trump on sanctions, which I thought would only frustrate him further. Then the Vice President suggested Jared Kushner call Turkey’s Finance Minister, since they were both sons-in-law of their respective countries’ leaders. Really, what could go wrong? I briefed Pompeo and Mnuchin on this new “son-in-law channel,” and they both exploded, Mnuchin because the Turkish son-in-law was Finance Minister, his counterpart, and Pompeo because this was one more example of Kushner’s doing international negotiations he shouldn’t have been doing (along with the never-quite-ready Middle East peace plan). I always enjoyed bringing good news. Trump and Kushner were flying to a political fund-raiser in the Hamptons where Mnuchin had already arrived, and Kushner called me later to say Mnuchin had “calmed down.” Kushner also said he had told the Turkish son-in-law he was calling in his “personal” capacity as a matter of “friendship” and in no way was signaling “weakness” to the Turks. I doubted the Turks believed any of that.

  On August 20, Trump called me in Israel about a shooting that morning near the US embassy in Ankara. I had already checked the incident out, finding it to be a local criminal matter, unrelated to the US. Nonetheless, Trump wondered if we should close the embassy, thereby increasing the heat regarding Brunson, and perhaps do something else, like canceling Turkey’s F-35 contract. I called Pompeo and others to fill them in and asked the NSC staff traveling with me to consider what options might be available. Pompeo thought we should declare Turkey’s Ambassador persona non grata and directed State’s lawyers to contact the White House Counsel to confer further. These steps were unorthodox, but we had spent considerable effort on Brunson and still not secured his release. In a few days, however, Trump reversed course, deciding against doing anything on our embassy or Turkey’s Ambassador, instead returning to the idea of more sanctions. “You have it on Turkey,” he said to me, meaning, basically, figure out what to do. He reaffirmed this view a few days later, saying, “Hit ’em, finish ’em. You got it,” and he told Merkel in a phone call that Erdogan was being very obtuse on the Brunson issue, saying we would be imposing substantial sanctions in the next few days. The Qataris, who were extending Turkey a massive financial lifeline,6 also volunteered to help on Brunson, but it was hard to see their effort having any success.

  In fact, there was very little progress diplomatically, even as the effects of sanctions and the obvious split with the United States over Brunson and other issues (such as buying Russia’s S-400 air defense system) continued to wreak havoc across Turkey’s economy. Turkey, urgently needing more foreign direct investment, was rapidly moving in the opposite direction, which eventually affected its decision-making. Its judicial system ground its way to yet another hearing on Friday, October 12, in Izmir, where Brunson had been under house arrest since July. With strong indications the court was working toward releasing him, the Defense Department prepared to stage a plane in Germany in case it was needed to retrieve Brunson and his family. Bizarrely, the court convicted Brunson of espionage and related crimes (which was ridiculous), sentenced him to five years in jail, and then decided because of time served and other mitigating factors, he was free to go. This outcome showed that the political fix was in: Erdogan’s claim Brunson was a spy had been “vindicated” for his domestic political purposes, but Brunson went free.7

  At 9:35 a.m., I called Trump, who was as usual still in
the Residence, and said we were 95 percent certain Brunson was out. Trump was ecstatic, immediately tweeting away, mixed in with a tweet about why Ivanka would be a great UN Ambassador. He wanted Brunson brought immediately to the White House, not stopping at the US medical facility at Landstuhl, Germany, for medical observation and care if necessary. Delays in getting the Pentagon plane to Izmir meant Brunson had to overnight in Germany anyway. In turn, that meant his visit to the White House would be Saturday afternoon, when North Carolina members of Congress, his home state, and additional family and friends would attend. After seeing the White House physician just to ensure they were ready for the wild scene about to unfold, Brunson and his wife walked to the West Wing. I spoke to them briefly, surprised to hear that Brunson had followed me for a long time and almost always agreed with me. The Brunsons went to the Residence to meet Trump and then walked with him along the colonnade to the Oval Office, where those assembled greeted them with cheers. The press mob entered as the pastor and the President talked. At the end, Brunson knelt next to Trump’s chair, put his arm on Trump’s shoulder, and prayed for him, which, needless to say, was the photo du jour. So the Brunson matter ended, but bilateral relations with Turkey were at their lowest ebb ever.

  Before his release, however, conditions in Syria were already deteriorating. We worried in September that Assad was planning to savage Idlib Governorate,8 long an opposition stronghold in northwestern Syria. It was now home to hundreds of thousands of internally displaced Syrians, mixed with radical terrorists, as well as a Turkish military presence intended to deter any Assad attack. Russia and Iran would almost certainly assist Assad, producing bloodshed and chaos, and launching massive refugee flows from Syria into Turkey. Along with legitimate refugees, thousands of terrorists would escape, many of whom would head to Europe, their preferred destination. I was particularly worried Assad might again use chemical weapons, and I pushed urgently for the Defense Department to think about a possible military response (hopefully again with Britain and France) in case it happened. I didn’t want to be unprepared, as in April. If required, retaliation should not again just aim at degrading Syria’s chemical-weapons capability but at permanently altering Assad’s proclivity to use it. This time, Mattis freed the Joint Chiefs to do what they should do; there was extensive advance planning, based on alternative assumptions, limitations (e.g., rigorously avoiding the risk of civilian casualties), and objectives. Unlike in April, I felt that if worse came to worst, we were ready to present real options for Trump to choose from.

  In the meantime, Israel wasn’t waiting around, repeatedly striking Iranian shipments of weapons and supplies that could be threatening.9 Jerusalem had its own communications with Moscow, because Netanyahu was not after Russian targets or personnel, only Iranians and terrorists. Russia’s real problem was its Syrian allies, who shot down a Russian surveillance plane in mid-September,10 which also prompted Moscow to turn over elements of its S-300 air defense system to the Syrians, troubling Israel greatly.11

  In Iraq, on Saturday, September 8, Shia militia groups, undoubtedly supplied by Iran, attacked Embassy Baghdad and our Basra consulate, and Iran launched missiles against targets near Irbil in Kurdish Iraq.12 Coming days before the anniversary of 9/11, and with the 2012 assault on our Benghazi diplomatic compound on our minds, we needed to think strategically about our response. We did not. Kelly told me that, after a campaign event, Trump “unleashed” to him yet again on wanting out of the Middle East entirely. Dead Americans in Iraq, tragic in themselves, might accelerate withdrawal, to our long-term detriment, and that of Israel and our Arab allies, if we didn’t think this through carefully. By Monday, however, our “response” was down to a possible statement condemning Iran’s role in the attacks. Mattis opposed even that, still arguing we weren’t absolutely sure the Shia militia groups were tied to Iran, which defied credulity. Our indecision continued until Tuesday, when Mattis precipitated an Oval Office meeting on this one-paragraph statement, with Trump, Pence, Mattis, Pompeo, Kelly, and me. It was now so late few would notice it, whatever it said. This was Mattis obstructionism at work: no kinetic response, and perhaps not even a press release responding to attacks on US diplomatic personnel and facilities. What lesson did Iran and the militias draw from our complete passivity?

  Predictably, there were renewed threats by Shia militia groups within weeks, and two more rocket attacks on the Basra consulate. Pompeo decided almost immediately to close the consulate (which employed over a thousand people, including government employees and contractors) to avoid a Benghazi-like catastrophe. This time, even Mattis could not deny the Iran connection. Betraying no sense of irony, however, and still opposing any kinetic action in response, he worried that shuttering the consulate would signal we were retreating from Iraq. Nonetheless, on September 28, Pompeo announced the consulate’s closure.13 When we come to the events of summer 2019, and the shooting down of US drones and other belligerent Iranian acts in the region, remember well these Administration failures to respond to the provocations one year earlier.

  Shortly thereafter, Trump flipped again on Erdogan and Turkey. With the Brunson matter now six weeks behind us, the two leaders met bilaterally on December 1 at the Buenos Aires G20 summit, largely discussing Halkbank. Erdogan provided a memo by the law firm representing Halkbank, which Trump did nothing more than flip through before declaring he believed Halkbank was totally innocent of violating US Iran sanctions. Trump asked whether we could reach Acting US Attorney General Matt Whitaker, which I sidestepped. Trump then told Erdogan he would take care of things, explaining that the Southern District prosecutors were not his people, but were Obama people, a problem that would be fixed when they were replaced by his people.

  Of course, this was all nonsense, since the prosecutors were career Justice Department employees, who would have proceeded the same way if the Halkbank investigation started in the eighth year of Trump’s presidency rather than the eighth year of Obama’s. It was as though Trump was trying to show he had as much arbitrary authority as Erdogan, who had said twenty years earlier as mayor of Istanbul, “Democracy is like a streetcar. You ride it to the stop you want, and then you get off.”14 Trump rolled on, claiming he didn’t want anything bad to happen to Erdogan or Turkey, and that he would work very hard on the issue. Erdogan also complained about Kurdish forces in Syria (which Trump didn’t address) and then raised Fethullah Gulen, asking yet again that he be extradited to Turkey. Trump hypothesized that Gulen would last for only one day if he were returned to Turkey. The Turks laughed but said Gulen needn’t worry, since Turkey had no death penalty. Fortunately, the bilateral ended shortly thereafter. Nothing good was going to come of this renewed bromance with yet another authoritarian foreign leader.

  In fact, the Europeans had already shifted attention from the risks of an Assad assault into Idlib Governorate to concern about a Turkish attack in northeastern Syria, the triangular region east of the Euphrates River, south of Turkey, and west of Iraq. Largely under Syrian Opposition control, and dominated by Kurdish fighters, several thousand US and allied troops were deployed there to assist the continuing offensive against ISIS’s territorial caliphate. Begun under Obama, whose misguided policies in Iraq contributed heavily to the emergence of ISIS and its caliphate to begin with, the offensive was finally nearing success. It was close to eliminating ISIS’s territorial holdings in western Iraq and eastern Syria, although not eliminating ISIS itself, which still held the allegiance of thousands of fighters and terrorists living in and roaming through Iraq and Syria but not controlling any defined territory.

  Erdogan was purportedly interested in destroying the caliphate, but his real enemy was the Kurds, who, he believed with some justification, were allied to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, in Turkey, which the US had long considered a terrorist group. Why we were affiliated with one terrorist group in order to destroy another stemmed from Obama’s failure to see that Iran was a much more serious threat, now and in the future. Many parties
to this conflict opposed ISIS, including Iran, its terrorist proxy Hezbollah, and its near-satellite Syria. Tehran, however, unlike Obama, was also focusing on the next war, the one after ISIS was defeated. As the ISIS caliphate shrank, Iran was expanding its span of control in the region, leaving the US with its awkward squad of allies. That said, America had long supported Kurdish efforts for greater autonomy or even independence from Iraq, and a Kurdish state would require border adjustments for existing states in the neighborhood. It was complicated, but what was not complicated was the strong US sense of loyalty to Kurds who had fought with us against ISIS, and fear that abandoning them was not only disloyal but would have severely adverse consequences worldwide for any future effort to recruit allies who might later be seen as expendable.

  In the meantime, there was turmoil at the Pentagon. On Friday, December 7, at our weekly breakfast, Mattis said somberly to Pompeo and me, “You gentlemen have more political capital than I do now,” which sounded ominous. Mark Milley’s nomination to succeed Dunford as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs would be announced the next day, before the Army-Navy game, but we knew it was coming. Milley, then Army Chief of Staff, had impressed Trump and won the job on his own. Mattis had tried to force his preferred candidate on Trump, but many Trump supporters believed that the last thing he needed was a Mattis clone as Chairman. By pushing prematurely, perhaps because Mattis knew he would be leaving well before Dunford’s term expired on September 30, 2019, Mattis had hurt his own cause. At our next Ward Room breakfast, Thursday, December 13, the mood was decidedly unhappy for several reasons, but largely because we all felt, silently to be sure, Mattis was coming to the end of his ride. It didn’t bother me that Mattis’s obstructionism would be leaving with him, but his departure was part of a problematic, almost inevitable pattern. None of the three prior Republican Administrations in which I served had seen anything approaching this extent and manner of senior-level turnover.