by John Bolton;
After the UK state visit, the Brits and then the French hosted D-Day seventy-fifth anniversary celebrations, first on June 5 in Portsmouth, from which many of the landing forces had embarked, and then at Normandy itself on June 6. After the Normandy festivities, Macron hosted a lunch for Trump, with Iran the main subject. Macron was fixed on “the July 8 deadline” of Iran’s ultimatum to Europe to provide the economic benefits Tehran thought it was owed under the nuclear deal or Iran would begin breaching key limitations in it. In European Union theology, such breaches might well signal the death of the deal. Plus, in my view, Macron wanted in on Abe’s action. What would we be willing to give up, Macron wanted to know. Would we be ready to alleviate the sanctions? And what would we want from Iran? Reducing its military activities in Syria and Yemen? After explaining again the effects on Iran of America’s reimposition of sanctions, Trump went after Kerry for violating the Logan Act and convincing Iran not to negotiate. Mnuchin said we could easily turn sanctions off and on regarding Iran, which was flatly incorrect as a matter of sanctions effectiveness and completely unauthorized by anything Trump had said to that point. He may have been moving in that direction, but Mnuchin was pandering, surrendering without even contemplating the signal that would burst worldwide if sanctions were relaxed, or even asking what we would get in return. Macron said expressly that he was worried Iran would flatly reject negotiations, which I thought a near certainty, thereby saving us from ourselves. This entire conversation was a disaster. Abe’s visit to Iran was bad enough, but adding the Europeans could only make it worse. They had a completely different agenda, namely saving the nuclear deal at any cost, rather than acting seriously against the underlying problem. Of course, if Iran continued its belligerent actions and struck new US or allied targets, any US military response would stop any Japanese or European diplomacy dead in its tracks. That is what kept my thoughts of resignation in check, for now.
As I was flying back to Andrews, Kupperman called shortly after six p.m. Washington time. Just hours before, a US MQ-9 Reaper drone (a version of the Predator) had been shot down near Hodeida in Yemen, by a surface-to-air missile likely fired by the Houthis (or Iranians from Houthi territory). The Houthis claimed credit, so Kupperman scheduled a Deputies Committee for eight a.m. Friday morning to consider how to respond.29 As it turned out, we did nothing, in large part because the military, in the person of Joint Chiefs of Staff Vice Chairman Paul Selva, insisted we were uncertain who had actually shot the Reaper down and who had committed the other recent attacks. My assessment could not have been more to the contrary. Selva acted like a prosecutor demanding that we show guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, which we were actually close to here, the emphasis being on “reasonable.” Who else would do this besides Iran or its surrogates? But more important, we were not trying criminal cases in court. We were in a messy real world where knowledge was always imperfect. Of course, that real world also includes bureaucrats expert at ensuring they don’t do what they don’t want to do, which was an especially powerful problem with a President whose views sometimes zigzagged hourly. As if this weren’t bad enough, Defense Department civilians were also trying to pressure Israel not to take self-defense measures, which Pompeo told me that he had personally intervened, and rightly so, to overturn. The Mattis spirit lived on.
Yachi called me at eight thirty a.m. on Friday, June 7, to go over Abe’s talking points for the Iran visit, which described a proposal that could have come from Macron or Merkel, it was so generous to Iran. Japan was schizophrenic on Iran and North Korea, soft on the former (because of oil) and hard on the latter (because of grim reality), and I strove repeatedly, with mixed success, to make the Japanese see how similar the two threats were. Japan quite rightly understood that “maximum pressure” was the right strategy to apply against North Korea, and if an EU country had proposed for Pyongyang what Abe was proposing for Tehran, he would have emphatically and unhesitatingly rejected it. I wanted to keep as much distance as possible between Japan and the Europeans, because I thought their objectives were so different, inconsistent in fact. Weakening the sanctions against Kim Jong-Un would only have encouraged him to hold out for better terms on the nuclear side, just as easing the strain on Iran would have done the same in Tehran, all of which I explained to Yachi at length. I briefed Yachi on the Iranian threats we faced, just so he knew how serious they were, using the shooting-down of the Reaper drone and the other attacks described above to illustrate the point. I also told Yachi how important Trump thought Abe’s trip was, how difficult it was, and how important to get it right. I was hardly going to undercut Abe’s mission, but I was just as determined not to give carte blanche, especially with France and Mnuchin stumbling around trying to save the JCPOA.
On Monday, June 10, I spoke to Trump about how Abe’s plans were developing. In our discussion, Trump made clear that Abe’s idea was acceptable only “if they [Iran] make the deal,” meaning not a concession now, but only after Iran had satisfactorily given up nuclear weapons. This was a crucial distinction, but one Trump himself had trouble keeping straight, with respect to both Iran and North Korea. I called Pompeo to tell him the good news, and he said, “I guess that’s it then,” meaning we were out of danger, at least for now. Nonetheless, he was less optimistic than I about being saved from what could become the Trump Administration’s version of the “cash on pallets” delivered to Iran under Obama. Based on his conversations with Japan’s Foreign Minister, he worried they were not prepared to accept what Trump had conveyed to me earlier. To both of us, as Iran and North Korea developments converged in June and July, the risks were growing serious. On Iran, Pompeo told me a dozen Foreign Ministers called him once word of Abe’s mission began to get around, believing the “maximum pressure” campaign was off and offering to help mediate. It was more proof that only Trump among world leaders believed talking to adversaries was purely content-neutral. As Pompeo put it, if you only want a nuclear deal with Iran, don’t care how good it is, and also don’t care about ballistic missiles, support for terrorism, or much else, that deal already existed: the Iran nuclear deal! North Korea was just as bad. We were, in Pompeo’s words, “in the danger zone” of Trump’s completely undercutting his own policies. What the rest of the world made of our disarray and confusion was less certain, because for the moment, courtesy of the New York Times and others,30 the media were focusing on the split between Trump and me on North Korea and Iran. The bigger picture was the split between Trump and Trump.
That evening, Abe called Trump to review his final Iran script, which was about as innocuous as we could make it. Nonetheless, Abe asked about his proposed program, saying he understood that the United States was skeptical about presenting this idea to Iran at this point in time. Trump simply didn’t respond to Abe’s comment, which signaled to everyone on the call he would be happy if Abe didn’t raise it with Iran. I could hardly believe our good fortune. This was not just dodging a bullet but dodging a MIRV’ed ICBM.
On Thursday, June 13, in the middle of the night, the Sit Room called to relay the information that two tankers in the Gulf of Oman had been attacked. The Front Altair and the Kokuka Courageous (the latter Japanese owned) were reporting fires and potential flooding, and a US naval vessel was en route to render assistance. There was no immediate evidence who had struck, but there was no doubt in my mind. By three hours later, the fires had grown more serious, and nearby commercial vessels, one later determined to be the Hyundai Dubai, evacuated both crews. Iranian naval ships approached the Hyundai Dubai and demanded the sailors it had rescued be turned over, which they were. (US Central Command later posted these facts on its website, refuting Iran’s outrageous claim that its navy rescued one of the crews.)31 I arrived at the White House at five forty-five a.m., Kupperman having gotten there earlier, and went immediately to the Sit Room. Reuters was already reporting, picked up by Al Jazeera, so the news was spreading rapidly across the Middle East.
I left for the previously scheduled meeting in
the Tank. Shanahan and Dunford wanted a strategic discussion on Iran, which I said was fine, but we were now looking at “an attack on the global oil market” we simply couldn’t ignore. The Quds Force was continuing up the escalation ladder, and why not? They certainly weren’t seeing the United States do anything in response. Nonetheless, we slogged through the usual Pentagon array of charts (called “place mats” because of the size of the paper used). They had lines and columns and arrows, all very artistic. Finally, I said our various policy priorities with Iran (nuclear, terrorism, conventional military aggression) could not be delinked, and we particularly could not separate Iran’s nuclear program from all its other malign behavior. This was precisely Obama’s mistake on the nuclear deal. Why return to his failed analytical framework? I argued again that, whether or not it was our declared “end state” (a favored bureaucratic term), there would be no “new” Iran deal and no “deterrence” established as long as Iran’s current regime remained. You could like it or not, but basing policy on some other reality would not get us to any “end state” we sought. Whether this discussion was productive or not, or whether it would just lead to another set of elaborate place mats, remained to be seen.
Heading back to the White House, I called Trump. I described our meeting in the Tank and also what was happening in the Gulf of Oman, some of which Fox had already broadcast. “Play it down,” said Trump, which was yet again the wrong approach, but which reflected his view that if you pretended bad things hadn’t happened, perhaps no one else would notice. By the time I reached the West Wing, our information was unambiguous that this was an Iranian attack. We were all amazed to see film of Iranian sailors approach the Kokuka Courageous and remove a mine that hadn’t detonated from the hull of the ship.32 How brazen could you get? I briefed Pence, who was in Montana, returning later in the day.
Hearing the results of Abe’s meeting with Khamenei later in the day underlined the Tank discussion. Khamenei took notes as Abe spoke but said at the end that he had no response, which was all but insulting. Moreover, Khamenei was far tougher than Rouhani had been the day before. This showed the folly of Macron and others (Trump included) talking to Rouhani rather than the “Supreme Leader.” Was there something unclear about that title? Moreover, even before Abe boarded his plane back to Japan, and contrary to his explicit request not to publicize the meeting, Khamenei issued a long string of tweets; the two most critical from our perspective were:
We have no doubt in @abeshinzo’s goodwill and seriousness; but regarding what you mentioned from U.S. president, I don’t consider Trump as a person deserving to exchange messages with; I have no response for him & will not answer him.
We do not believe at all that the U.S. is seeking genuine negotiations with Iran; because genuine negotiations would never come from a person like Trump. Genuineness is very rare among U.S. officials.
The conclusion was plain: Abe’s mission had failed. Iran had effectively slapped Abe in the face, attacking civilian ships near Iran, one of which was Japanese owned, even as he was simultaneously meeting with Khamenei. Nonetheless, the Japanese were in denial, perhaps trying to shield Abe from the humiliation Trump had urged him into.
Pompeo and I met with Trump at twelve fifteen, and I showed him Khamenei’s tweets. “Nasty,” he said, “very nasty,” before launching into a long riff on how Kerry was preventing him from negotiating with Iran. Trump wanted to respond to Khamenei’s tweets, which eventually emerged as:
While I very much appreciate P.M. Abe going to Iran to meet with Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, I personally feel that it is too soon to even think about making a deal. They are not ready, and neither are we! It is the assessment of the U.S. government that Iran is responsible for today’s attacks in the Gulf of Oman…”
On Friday morning, Abe gave Trump a personal readout of his trip, saying that he had seen no willingness from either Rouhani or Khamenei to have a dialogue with the United States as long as the economic sanctions remained in place. At least Abe complained that Iran immediately made the meeting public, but he nonetheless thought Rouhani really did want a dialogue with the US, waxing poetic about how Rouhani had run after him in the hallway after the Khamenei meeting to say that lifting sanctions would be conducive to opening such a dialogue. Worst of all, Abe remained locked into the idea that Iran and North Korea were very different cases, saying we needed a different approach to Iran. They really had blinders on. Trump said Abe should not feel guilty that he had totally and absolutely failed,33 but he then backed off, perhaps thinking he had been a tad harsh, saying he just wanted to have a little fun. He hadn’t expected Abe to succeed, and he was not surprised at all at the result. He turned to what was really on his mind, saying he really appreciated the effort, but that it was really much more important to him personally that Japan buy more U.S. farm products. The US was doing a lot for Japan, defending it and losing a lot of money on trade. Abe acknowledged that he was considering what to do, and Trump said that the sooner he could do it the better, like immediately. Then, back on Iran, Trump said Abe didn’t need to bother to negotiate with them anymore, given the very nasty statements Iran had issued after Abe’s meetings. Trump would do the negotiating himself, which he tweeted soon after the call.34
We had an NSC meeting scheduled to begin right after the Abe call, but it was late getting started. Trump began by summarizing his discussion with Abe, and after a riff on Kerry’s violating the Logan Act, Trump looked at Cipollone and Eisenberg, saying, “The lawyers refuse to do it. I can’t understand it. It’s ridiculous you don’t do it.” Shanahan and Dunford wanted to get a better sense of Trump’s “intent,” and in the course of doing that they showed a new set of place mats with some interesting public statistics on oil purchases by various countries from the Middle East showing very high imports from the Middle East for China, South Korea, Japan, India, and Indonesia.35 I knew what was coming: why didn’t these importing countries do more, and why didn’t they and Middle East oil producers pay more to safeguard their own oil shipments? By the time Shanahan and Dunford got to the fourth or fifth chart, Trump had begun losing interest, saying, “Let’s go to the ‘what do you want to do?’ page.” We discussed the various options but came to no conclusions. Then Trump was back to exiting Syria and Afghanistan, and making the Gulf Arab states pay for whatever we decided to do. I explained, as I had before, that the Bush 41 Administration raised substantial support to pay for the 1991 Gulf War. Pompeo assured Trump he would call the appropriate regional countries.
Trump left, although Pence, Pompeo, Dunford, Shanahan, and I continued the conversation. Dunford wanted to be sure Trump understood that if we inflicted casualties on Iran, Iran’s “moratorium” on killing Americans would end. I asked, “What moratorium?” given the number of Americans Iran had killed, starting with the Marine barracks in Lebanon in 1983. The casualty issue was much on the minds of everyone in this and other meetings with Trump. Pence said he thought it was clear Trump “want[ed] kinetic options,” which is also how I read him. This was one of a long and growing list of discussions where there was no doubt Trump wanted to consider such options—not that he had decided on anything—and that he was getting frustrated at not having more options before him. There was still considerable work before the next meeting on Monday, but I thought at least no one could fault us for not being exhaustive in considering the implications of using military force.
On Monday, June 17, however, we still did not reach a decision. The bureaucracies and key officials took advantage of Trump’s impatience and short attention span to delay a response to the attacks on the tankers. That pushed things beyond the point where military action seemed appropriate. The obstructionists didn’t have their own plan, but they counted, successfully, on delay to frustrate any alternative. Most important, they continued to miss the point that failing to act not only enabled Iran to advance its hegemonic aspirations in the gulf, but it also taught them the wrong lessons about deterrence. They were not impressed by American
“restraint” but were increasingly convinced we were no obstacle at all. We were simply getting in our own way.
Demonstrating the point even before the ten a.m. NSC meeting, a spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran announced it was not waiting until July 8 to violate key nuclear deal limits but had already started doing so. Iran would breach the low-enriched uranium storage limit (300 kg) in ten days, and the limit on stored heavy water (130 tons) within two to three months.36 Enriching to U-235 levels above the deal’s 3.67 percent limit could start in a matter of days or hours, since it involved only mechanical changes in the centrifuge cascade systems doing the enrichment. Iran obviously intended to increase pressure on the Europeans, who were desperately trying to save the nuclear deal, but more important, Tehran was also proving that its key objective was the nuclear-weapons program. Asked if Iran would withdraw from the nuclear deal, the spokesman said, “If we continue this way, this will effectively occur.”37
Shanahan, Dunford, Pompeo, and I met in my office before the NSC meeting to go over the options the Pentagon had prepared. Unfortunately, they had brought basically the same set we had discussed on Friday, as to which Trump said even then, “We should have hit something immediately after the tankers were hit. My military hasn’t been giving me options.” Pompeo opened the NSC meeting saying he was making progress with the Gulf Arab countries on financing future operations: “I am confident they will write significant checks.” “They should,” said Trump. “We don’t need their oil anymore. I just don’t want Iran to have nuclear weapons.” By now, he had his own ideas about what targets to hit, and they were well beyond the options the Defense Department proposed. Trump may or may not have realized it, but he was making an important point about how to “reestablish deterrence,” a favorite Pentagon phrase. The Joint Chiefs preferred to do so by a “proportionate” response, “tit-for-tat,” that no one could criticize them for. But, in my judgment, it was far likelier that a disproportionate response—such as attacking oil refineries or aspects of Iran’s nuclear-weapons program—was necessary to reestablish deterrence. The point was to convince Iran it would face costs far higher than it was imposing on us or our friends if it used force. As of now, Iran had paid no costs at all. Even Obama at least threatened attacking Iran, although the seriousness of his statements was open to question.38 That, unfortunately, was what we were still doing: not pursuing options. We agreed merely to increase personnel making defensive preparations for US forces in the region, and we had trouble even issuing a press release to that effect by day’s end. Moreover, that modest news was overwhelmed by Iran’s blowing past the nuclear deal limits. Tehran was still on the move toward nuclear weapons, while we watched the grass grow.