by John Bolton;
On Wednesday, August 14, Kupperman first heard from Esper’s Chief of Staff about a Friday meeting on Afghanistan at Trump’s Bedminster golf club, where he was staying for about a week. That was news to us, so at 7:10 a.m. the next morning, I called Mulvaney, who was also in New Jersey, to see what was up. He said he had heard about a Friday meeting, and asked Westerhout about it. She said it was with “the guy from Afghanistan” (meaning Khalilzad) and Pompeo. “You can come,” said Mulvaney, “is [the Defense Department] coming?” I said I thought so, and the call ended. All this showed yet again how State was treating the rest of the national security team. I had no doubt the Taliban were increasingly happy about the terms of the emerging deal, most of which I believed they had little intention of following. I suspected Pompeo wanted Trump to sign off with the minimal internal opposition possible but the endless negotiations had produced a result I and many others believed would have severe negative consequences for America. The National Security Advisor’s job is to coordinate between State, Defense, and other NSC members. If I couldn’t perform this role, there was no point in staying. In the meantime, at least I had “succeeded” in getting invited.
I spoke with Pompeo later that morning, raising the Bedminster gathering among other issues. He said we were “not done” with the negotiations, like the nature of the cease-fire, the overall reduction in violence from the Taliban, and the counterterrorism mission, all of which were unresolved. I said I was flying up for the meeting, probably on Air Force Two with Pence, and asked when he was going up. You could have heard a pin drop. He obviously had not anticipated that a small army of people would be attending the Bedminster meeting, and certainly not me. It turned out that Haspel, Cipollone, Marc Short (the VP Chief of Staff), and Kellogg also attended, along with Mulvaney, Esper, and Dunford.
Lindsey Graham called me, having heard about the Bedminster meeting and stressed to Trump on Wednesday the need for a residual force to counter the terrorist threat and other purposes. Nonetheless, he was very worried about press reports indicating the deal with the Taliban contained no such provisions, and he asked me to speak with Jack Keane, the retired four-star general who was a regular commentator on Fox. I called Keane while waiting to take off from Andrews and urged him to call Trump directly, since he and Trump spoke frequently about such issues. If there was ever a time for Keane to talk to Trump on Afghanistan, this was it. Pence asked me to join him in his cabin for the flight, and I explained the risks in the proposed deal, as best I understood it, as well as the considerable political downside for Trump, noting that Graham and others were already outspoken in their views. We landed at the Morristown, New Jersey, airport and motorcaded to Bedminster.
The meeting began shortly after three p.m., with Pompeo saying, “We are not quite done with the Taliban,” but then laying out the broad terms of a deal that sounded almost done. This description contrasted sharply with what Pompeo had said to me on the phone earlier that day. Trump asked questions, especially about one provision for an exchange of prisoners and hostages between the Taliban and the Afghan government, which in numerical terms looked a lot more favorable to the Taliban than to us. Trump didn’t like that at all. Then Trump began riffing about Afghan President Ghani and his elaborate house in Dubai, which we knew from actual research Ghani didn’t own. But no matter, because Pompeo pointed out the reality that Ghani was now President and controlled the government’s armed forces. Completely predictably, Trump asked, “Who pays them?” Esper, new to this movie script, promptly responded, “We do,” thereby launching Trump into the riff about how Mattis always said, “These soldiers are fighting bravely for their country,” until Trump asked who paid for them, and found out the total cost (including equipment and other supplies) was about $6.5 billion annually. “They are the most highly paid soldiers in the world,” Trump concluded. Then he was off on “green-on-blue” attacks, where Afghan government soldiers attacked US forces: “We teach them how to shoot, and then they take the weapons and say, ‘Oh, thank you, sir,’ and then kill our guys.” Then we were off to the Afghan elections and a reprise on why Trump didn’t like this or that senior Afghan official. If only Trump could keep it straight that incumbent President Ghani was not former President Karzai, we could have spared ourselves a lot of trouble.
As the discussion proceeded, Trump said at one point, “Making a bad deal is worse than just getting out. I’d rather not make a deal.” I thought this comment provided a glimmer of hope. But before we got too far, Trump shifted again to complaining about leaks, including that CNN had earlier reported this very meeting. “These people should be executed, they are scumbags,” he said, but then observed it was “not a bad thing that the news [was] out” that we were talking about Afghanistan. This led to one of Trump’s favorite legal gambits, namely, that the Justice Department arrest the reporters, force them to serve time in jail, and then demand they disclose their sources. Only then would the leaks stop. Trump told Cipollone to call Barr about it, which Cipollone said he would do. Trump went on: “I like my message. If they come at us, we’re going to destroy their whole nation. Not with nuclear weapons though. They hate us too. Taliban wants their land. We went in to take their land, and they’ve got crooks” in the highest levels of government.
The conversation continued, but I sensed Trump was increasingly distant from it. Something was bothering him, but I couldn’t tell what. Suddenly, off to the races again: “I want to get out of everything,” he said, criticizing our military programs in Africa, as Esper and Dunford hastened to assure him they were already being reduced. Then it was back to the 2018 NATO summit and how he threatened to withdraw (which was not quite true), and how much we spent in Ukraine. Then he again recounted his first conversation with Angela Merkel, and how even before congratulating him for winning, Merkel had asked what he was going to do about Ukraine. Trump had replied by asking Merkel what she was going to do about Ukraine.5 Then he asked, “Do we really want Fort Trump [in Poland]?” I said he had agreed to it in several conversations with Polish President Andrzej Duda, that the Poles were paying for its construction, and that he was going to Poland on September 1 to commemorate the eightieth anniversary of the Nazi invasion, which didn’t slow him down. He said he didn’t remember agreeing to Fort Trump, which reflected on either his memory or his ability to disregard whatever he didn’t want to remember.
Esper tried to explain that troops in Poland would be rotational rather than permanent, but Trump was off to his next point, the ongoing war games in South Korea. “You shouldn’t have let them go on,” he said to me, notwithstanding that he had agreed to them, knowing they were tabletop exercises, not field maneuvers. “I’m trying to make peace with a psycho,” he said, which at least acknowledged that Kim Jong Un might be somewhat problematic. “The war games are a big mistake. I never should have agreed to the exercises,” he finally said. “Get out of there if we don’t get the five-billion-dollar deal [for South Korean support of US bases]. We lose $38 billion in trade in Korea. Let’s get out.” He asked several times when the current exercises ended, which was on August 20, and he said, “End them in two days; don’t extend them even for a day.”
As if he had already decided to approve the Pompeo-Khalilzad deal, Trump said, “Let’s make a big deal about it, like it’s a wonderful deal. If they do anything bad [which I understood to mean, if Taliban broke the agreement], we’re going to blow their fucking country into a million pieces. [I did not take this to be a well-thought-out military strategy, but simply typical Trump analysis.] And I don’t blame the military because you weren’t given the tools.” This last point would have surprised Mattis, to whom Trump had constantly said he had done just that. Then it was off on the subject of Greenland, but quickly back to Africa: “I want out of Africa and as many other places as you can. I want our soldiers on our soil. Take them out of Germany. I’m going to tell Germany, ‘You have to pay immediately.’ ” Then it was back to Fort Trump, and Esper tried for a second time to e
xplain that US troops there would be rotating in and out, not actually stationed there. “I got elected on getting out of Afghanistan and these war games.” Then he said, “We have fifty-two thousand troops in Europe… People are so enamored with NATO.” Then, switching to Kashmir, “I want to call Modi on Monday,” he said. “We have tremendous power […] because of trade.”
Pence tried to return the conversation to announcing the Afghan deal, asking if it should be next week. Trump said, “Don’t mention ‘withdrawal’ in the statement, but say we will go to zero in October [2020] right before the election. We could push it past the election. How does it look politically?” Dunford said we could decrease to the proposed resource levels Trump had been briefed on in the Tank (discussed above) and just stop there. Pompeo again pushed for a commitment to zero in the agreement because the Taliban insisted on it. That was the heart of the problem. I said near the meeting’s end that I hadn’t actually seen the text of the agreement, and Pompeo said, “It’s true we’ve held this very tight, but we will have leaks as soon as we broaden the distribution.” That was another problem. Pompeo tried to keep the whole thing between himself, Khalilzad, and Trump (although, as the meeting started, Trump said it had been a long time since he had seen Khalilzad). By keeping it so tight, Pompeo guaranteed he owned it entirely. That was fine with me. If that’s what he and Trump wanted, they could have the political blowback to themselves. The meeting ended about 4:50 p.m., without a decision on whether there would be a statement next week or not. In part, that was because significant issues were still unresolved, if they could be resolved at all.
On Monday, I met Khalilzad at his request to follow up the Bedminster meeting. He and Pompeo had clearly taken Friday’s outcome to mean they had carte blanche to continue negotiating, which, as I told Khalilzad, I thought overstated their writ. In any case, I had little doubt that Trump reserved the right to reject anything he didn’t like, right up to and even after the last minute. Khalilzad first wanted me to read the documents that were mostly agreed, but he couldn’t leave copies behind. I said thanks but handed the documents back to him unread, saying there was no way I was going to be rushed on these things. I wanted time to study the documents, and I didn’t alter my view even after Khalilzad said Esper, Dunford, and Haspel had all agreed to his proposed approach. He seemed stunned I wouldn’t go along, but I was quite clear I wasn’t going to consume in ten minutes something he and Pompeo had worked on for ten months. I said I couldn’t for the life of me figure out Pompeo’s desire to hold all this so tightly, using preventing leaks as an argument never to show it to anyone. Why, I asked, given that we all knew the political risks on this deal were from most Republicans, let alone Democrats, didn’t Pompeo want allies? If he wanted all the credit for it, I could understand that, but there would be precious little “credit” when the agreement collapsed, which even Pompeo told me he thought was inevitable. What was the logic? Khalilzad didn’t answer, I suspect because he also didn’t understand why he operated under so many Pompeo-imposed constraints.
We next discussed what would happen in the negotiations. I explained why a “conditions-based” withdrawal, linked to US forces’ going to zero, was inherently unlikely to see the conditions actually met. We could repeat the phrase “conditions based” all we wanted, but in reality, this agreement would be regarded as pulling up stakes and getting out (which Trump probably would have preferred, even though none of the rest of us did), with all the attendant chaos that would likely follow. Khalilzad understood but said this was the best we could do. My strong personal opinion was that I was still prepared to reduce forces to some extent without any deal (albeit unhappily, because while those levels previously briefed to Trump would be the best we could get from him, I remained convinced they were too low). Nonetheless, Khalilzad said he still thought Trump and certainly Pompeo wanted a signed document, period. Always hoping for the best, I asked Khalilzad to stay in touch once he got back to the negotiations.
At a lunch later that day with Esper and me, Pompeo said he read Trump as being “uneasy,” which was not far from my own take. Trump didn’t want to stop the negotiations, but he was clearly worried he was exposing himself to more political risks than he had anticipated, and perhaps for no good reason. A few days later, on August 27, Pompeo reached me in Kiev to say Khalilzad had everything wrapped up and expected to bring back the final documents. Interestingly, he thought Trump was leaning toward my option of reducing forces to the counterterrorism-mission level (8,600, which even Trump was now using in public)6 without signing the deal. Pompeo thought Trump appreciated how devastating it would be to see the “zero” level in writing, especially with all the conditions-based language somewhere out in the weeds, which was certainly my analysis, and what I had argued as strenuously as I could at Bedminster. As to whether the military could live without the “protection” of a deal, Pompeo said he thought the US commander would prefer a deal but could live with it either way. That clinched it for me. Trump also said in a radio interview with Fox’s Brian Kilmeade, “We’re going to keep a presence there. We’re reducing that presence very substantially, and we’re always going to have a presence. We’re going to have high intelligence… But we’re bringing it down—if the deal happens. I don’t know that it’s going to happen… You know my attitude on those things, Brian.”7 On August 29, I called Pompeo from my plane on the way to Warsaw, and he said his phone had lit up with NATO foreign ministers and Stoltenberg as Trump made those remarks.
Later that day, because of Hurricane Dorian, Trump canceled his visit to Poland, saying Pence would instead lead our delegation. Therefore, what turned out to be a key meeting on Afghanistan took place on Friday, August 30, with Pence linked up from the outside; Khalilzad connected from Doha, I think; yours truly participating via videoconference from Warsaw; and all the other attendees in the Sit Room, including Kupperman, who later gave me the mood in the room. We were scheduled to cover not just Afghanistan but also Ukraine, so there was a lot riding on this call, which did not actually begin until eight forty-five p.m. Warsaw time. This was a fine irony since the ever-diligent Washington Post was about to publish (and did) a story saying I was excluded from key Afghanistan meetings. (These people were a piece of work.) The initial discussion sounded much like the one in Bedminster, with Trump opining, “The Taliban just want their land back,” and confusing President Ghani with former President Karzai and their respective net worths.
“Would you sign it, John?” Trump then asked, and I said, “I would not, Mr. President.” I explained again my reasons why Trump should just go down to 8,600 service members, plus associated and coalition forces, if that’s what he wanted to do, and then wait and await further developments, such as the Afghan elections. There was no way to trust the Taliban and no enforcement mechanism. This was not a New York real estate deal. Khalilzad then explained this was the deal Trump had said he wanted. Esper said he thought I made a lot of good points, but the Defense Department wanted the deal, because after all it was “conditions based.” Trump posed what was always his key question: “How bad will this deal make me look? The Democrats would trash a great agreement.” Esper suggested bringing in Hill leaders for consultations. Trump asked, “Is this agreement salable?” and I said I didn’t think so, largely because, in my view, the Taliban wouldn’t adhere to it and everyone knew it.
Then Trump blew the whole meeting away by saying, “I want to speak to the Taliban. Let them come to Washington.” I could not have been happier that I was in a secure room deep in Eastern Europe rather than in the Sit Room when I heard that statement. Trump asked Pence what he thought, and Pence replied carefully, “We should reflect before we make that decision. They have abused and oppressed their people. Have they actually changed?” Trump then referred to Billy Graham’s grandson, a major who had served in Afghanistan, who said, “We took their land.” “Why is he only a major?” Trump asked Dunford. “He’s good-looking, right from central casting.” We then discussed h
ow Congress would react to a US commitment to withdrawing our troops completely and what we were going to do with the duly-elected Afghan government, whatever Trump’s views on Ghani.
Trump said, “I want Ghani here too, as well as the Taliban. Let’s do it before it’s signed. I want to meet before it’s signed. Not a phone call.”
“They’d love to come,” said Khalilzad.
“Hey, John,” Trump said to the screen in the Sit Room, “what do you think?”
My instinct was that this meeting could stop the pending deal dead in its tracks while the Taliban and the Afghan government wrestled with its implications, or at least delay it for a significant-enough period because of the time it would take for the Afghan parties to figure out their positions. That would give us time to find some other way to tank the deal. So, I said, “Okay by me, as long as they have to pass through the world’s most powerful magnetometer before they meet with you.”
“And chemical,” said Trump, correctly.
Only Trump could conceive of a President of the United States meeting with these thugs, but by so doing, he was threatening the very deal Pompeo was pushing. “Maybe they will or they won’t come,” said Trump.