Every Day Is Extra

by John Kerry

  I sent the draft speech to President Obama in Hawaii and he wrote back to me: “John . . . I’ve got your back.”

  I was satisfied we’d spoken the truth as clearly as we possibly could. What was most disappointing to me about the reaction to this speech was that all the work we’d done on the regional front to establish final status principles had gotten lost in the cacophony of criticism. I had made my argument out of concern for and commitment to Israel. Sometimes you have to say hard truths to friends, and that’s a measurement of real friendship.

  Before my tenure was up, we had one last chance to get the focus back on the final status principles that we’d worked so hard over the past years to create. We wanted to have clarity about the framework that could lead to peace. We wanted to leave a positive path forward for when the parties were ready to take it. The French were hosting a conference on Middle East peace in January 2017. Heading into the conference, our challenge was to get everyone to sign on to a communiqué that expressly supported our final status principles.

  Over the course of the next two days, we had conversations with almost every foreign minister in the room to work out the remaining issues. In the end, we got there. Every country agreed to the communiqué supporting the final status principles, which was accepted by consensus. And following that, a number of foreign ministers acknowledged our work on this. I remember Jean-Marc Ayrault, the French foreign minister who was hosting the conference, saying that “Kerry speaks for all of us on this issue.” It was both an incredibly satisfying culmination of two years’ worth of effort and a strange anticlimax. Although most people were focused on Donald Trump’s election and few paid attention to the significance of the moment, for the first time the international community had come together in support of final status principles to finally end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

  So where do we go from here?

  I am an eternal optimist and I still see only one path forward. Today there are roughly equal numbers of Jews and Palestinians living between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. They can choose to live together in one state, or they can separate into two states. But here is a fundamental reality: with a one-state solution, Israel can be either Jewish or democratic—it cannot be both—and it won’t ever really be at peace. Moreover, the Palestinians will never have the chance to realize their vast potential in a homeland of their own with a one-state solution.

  That is why I firmly believe that the Israelis and the Palestinians need to find a fair and sustainable way to separate in the West Bank. Unfortunately, we’re heading in the opposite direction. That’s one of the most striking realities about the current situation: this critical decision about the future—one state or two states—is effectively being made on the ground every single day, despite the expressed desires of the majority of the people.

  I know that among Israelis as well as Palestinians, most people would quickly tell you that as much as they want peace, they think it is a distant dream—something that’s just not possible. We simply cannot give in to despair and allow this to become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

  For starters, it is important for both sides to take steps that will reverse current trends on the ground. The Palestinians must take much stronger action against violence and incitement that only reinforce Israelis’ worst suspicions. President Obama and I made it clear to the Palestinian leadership countless times that all incitement to violence must stop. We condemned violence and terrorism and condemned the Palestinian leadership for not condemning it. And we opposed boycotts and pushed back on efforts to delegitimize Israel in international forums and pursue action against Israel at the International Criminal Court, which only sets back the prospects for peace.

  At the same time, the most extreme elements on the Israeli political spectrum risk accelerating a one-state future. If there is only one state, you would have millions of Palestinians permanently living in segregated enclaves in the middle of the West Bank, with no real political rights; separate legal, education and transportation systems; vast income disparities; and under a permanent military occupation that deprives them of the most basic freedoms. Separate and unequal is what you would have. And nobody can explain how that works.

  We should never lose sight of the ultimate goal—what President Kennedy described as a genuine peace, “the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living, the kind that enables men and nations to grow and to hope and to build a better life for their children.” That is the future that everybody should be working for. It is up to Israelis and Palestinians to make the difficult choices for peace, but we can all help. For our part, we worked with the international community to create a way forward: steps on the ground that would begin the process of separation and rebuild trust, and final status principles for the parties to accept when they were ready. Whether it is this or some other approach, lasting peace will require difficult choices on both sides. For the sake of future generations of Israelis and Palestinians, for all the people of the region, of the United States and around the world who have prayed for and worked for peace for generations, let’s hope that the Israelis and the Palestinians are prepared to make those choices before it’s too late.

  As for me, my mind returns to the anthem I learned in the chapel in high school: “O Pray for the Peace of Jerusalem.” It is a song worth singing, and despite the scars I have, when it came to the effort to make peace between two peoples who desperately deserve it, I will always be proud that I got caught trying.

  CHAPTER 18

  Preventing a War

  IRANIAN FOREIGN MINISTER Javad Zarif walked through the door of a small, windowless room off the side of the UN Security Council chamber that was no bigger than a walk-in closet. The room had just a desk and a couple of chairs. By prearrangement, I was waiting there, having entered from a door on the other side. It was the first meeting of a U.S. secretary of state and an Iranian foreign minister in almost forty years.

  By all assessments of our allies, including Israel, and our own experts, Iran was hurtling toward nuclear weapons capability. No one doubted Iran had already mastered the nuclear fuel cycle. From the 164 centrifuges spinning to enrich uranium in the early days of the George W. Bush administration, by 2011 Iran was spinning 19,000 of their 27,000 deployed centrifuges. The Iranians had stockpiled a sufficient amount of enriched uranium, enough for eight to ten bombs if they broke out to make a weapon. They were a few months from commissioning a plutonium reactor that could produce enough weapons-grade plutonium for additional bombs. Our experts assessed that Iran could break out to a weapon in two to three months.

  Equally ominous, many of our strongest allies in the region were actively lobbying the United States to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities. For years, prime ministers, kings and presidents in the region had all argued the United States should initiate preemptive strikes.

  Iran’s behavior in the region greatly complicated the nuclear picture. Iran was testing missiles; supporting Hezbollah, a designated terrorist organization; meddling in Iraq; and threatening Saudi Arabia while supporting civil strife in Yemen. Indeed, the stakes were high.

  If the United States was going to bring Iran’s nuclear program under appropriate restraints and avoid engaging in a unilateral war of enforcement in the Middle East, we believed it was essential first to exhaust all possible remedies of diplomacy. We have learned through the years that America and the values we represent are stronger when we show the maturity and patience to build a broad coalition of support. That is what George H. W. Bush did in the Gulf War and that is what we did in implementing a strategy to defeat Daesh (more commonly known as ISIS or ISIL). We were well aware of Iran’s aggressive behavior in the region. That is precisely why we imposed sanctions for their missile activities, violations of human rights and trafficking in arms.

  But for all the problems Iran presented to the world and the region, President Obama and our entire national security team knew it would be easier to deal with Iran and make the world s
afer if we didn’t have the specter of a nuclear weapon hanging over us on all the issues we faced. We had to deal with Iran’s nuclear program.

  As Zarif and I settled into that small UN meeting room to begin our very first conversation, that stark reality was at the forefront of my mind. The meeting was meant to be a brief exchange.

  Javad and I spoke in that closet-sized room for nearly an hour. I had learned as much as I could about him beforehand from friends and colleagues who had worked with him at the UN. It was clear he had done the same, citing my work with the Omanis and other examples of my engagement in the region.

  I was immediately struck by Javad’s facility with idiomatic English. His American education and years as the Iranian permanent representative to the UN had provided him a huge grounding in American politics. He was well read, educated and intelligent. He was also an articulate, committed spokesperson for an Iranian regime with which we had very fundamental differences.

  We talked pleasantries at first—his years in New York, the UN, life in Iran and his family, our politics, my job, the Senate. Then we got down to business. I made it clear that the administration was prepared to be serious but didn’t feel either rushed or compelled to reach an agreement on Iran’s nuclear program. No deal was better than a bad deal, and it would be vital that Iran be prepared to prove it would live by International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) standards and more, or we would be wasting our time. He said Iran was not desperate for a deal. He mentioned the ayatollah’s fatwa, made public in 2003, declaring that Iran would not pursue a nuclear weapon. I said we obviously needed one of the most verifiable international agreements ever made. It was understood: we each had clear bottom lines that would never be crossed, but we were also both serious about trying to find a way forward.

  Before we departed, we discussed the importance of privacy. From the start, we both acknowledged that our relationship would be essential to success. We needed to have an open line through which we could communicate directly at the break-the-glass, tense moments. For that reason, we pledged in that first meeting to avoid working through disputes publicly, via the press. Instead, we would do all we could to resolve them privately.

  The press was well aware that Zarif and I would likely have some kind of conversation that day because we were both scheduled to attend a public meeting of the so-called P5+1—the group formed previously to focus on Iran’s nuclear program. The P5+1—the five permanent members of the UN Security Council (China, France, Russia, the UK and the United States) plus Germany—and the European Union had been meeting at lower levels, sporadically, for years, to gauge the possibilities for an agreement that would eliminate the international community’s concerns over Iran’s growing nuclear program. This was the first time diplomats at the foreign minister or secretary of state level had joined the P5+1 talks. Reporters were packed like sardines in the designated stakeout positions, eager for comments on what unfolded inside the UN Security Council chamber. Zarif and I were well aware of the attention. Forty years of mutual avoidance was erased with our meeting.

  All of this unfolded in the middle of the 2013 UN General Assembly—UNGA, as it’s known—a power-packed week each September when foreign leaders descend on New York City and New Yorkers avoid the ten-block radius around the UN headquarters in east Midtown for fear of getting caught waiting for one of the hundred-plus motorcades moving through the area. It’s controlled chaos. The State Department essentially takes over a few floors of a nearby hotel, converting the guest rooms into offices. It wasn’t unusual to have well over a dozen meetings and events on my calendar a day. Each meeting, each movement, is meticulously scheduled and choreographed. Zarif’s and my hour-long meeting sent people scurrying to make up for this impromptu encounter.

  • • •

  THE MEDIA REPORTS of that first meeting in New York described it as the opening of a new chapter between the United States and Iran. But our nations’ dialogue had actually started well before then.

  In May 2011, when I was still chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, I was introduced to an emissary of Sultan Qaboos of Oman—a man named Salem al-Ismaily. Salem is smart and incisive. He is also soft-spoken and humble—in fact, I’m certain he’d prefer to be excluded from this story. But the fact is his role is too critical to leave out.

  Salem first crossed my radar after the Iranian government imprisoned three American hikers who had inadvertently wandered into the Iranian mountains. They were suspected of being spies. When the first of those hikers, Sarah Shourd, was released in September 2010, she publicly highlighted the role Salem had played in her release, thanking her “dear friend Salem al-Ismaily” hours after she cleared Iranian airspace. But several months after Sarah returned home, the other two hikers, Josh Fattal and Shane Bauer, remained in Iran’s custody. With the United States and Iran refusing to engage directly on the matter, Sultan Qaboos and Salem were serving as de facto intermediaries for our governments in facilitating Josh’s and Shane’s release as well.

  Salem requested a meeting with me to discuss this issue, offering to fly to Washington from Muscat for the conversation. Despite his record of success in securing Sarah Shourd’s release, the sultan doubted whether the administration understood how helpful he intended to be with the Iranians.

  Within the first five minutes of meeting Salem, I realized that his objective extended beyond the hikers. We spoke of the importance of getting Josh and Shane home swiftly but he turned quickly to the potential for progress on other fronts as well. At the top of the list was Iran’s current path to a nuclear weapon. Salem made clear to me during that first meeting that Sultan Qaboos felt he could be helpful in advancing a mutually agreeable solution. It was also clear that the Omanis were not acting only out of goodwill; they knew that a nuclear-armed Iran would fundamentally undermine the stability of the region. And they were concerned, as we were, that Tehran was getting closer and closer to a weapon.

  Shane and Josh were finally released in September 2011, thanks in large part to Oman’s efforts. In my view, and in the view of many in the Obama administration, including President Obama himself, Sultan Qaboos had proven his seriousness and his sway with the Iranians.

  Having proven their bona fides, I believed it was appropriate to see if they could help bridge the communications divide with the Iranians. We needed greater insight into their thinking. We needed to better assess the possibilities. Salem and I began to talk regularly, both on the phone and, from time to time, in person. We were careful about prying ears and microphones. Knowing there were people in the United States and overseas who advocated military action as the only solution to Iran’s nuclear progress, we wanted to be careful not to make a diplomatic solution impossible even before our nations had a chance to sit down and talk.

  I shared my discussions only with the smallest number of authorized people in the administration, dealing most of the time with Tom Donilon. There was general agreement that, given the success of the hikers’ release, it was worth at least exploring the potential for progress on the nuclear front. With President Obama’s approval, I began planning for a trip to Muscat to meet with Sultan Qaboos in hopes of gaining better insight as to what was really possible. I suggested to President Obama that there was one more person we needed to bring into the circle: Senate majority leader Harry Reid.

  It turned out there was only one possible window of time for me to make the trip before the end of the year, and, regrettably, it meant I’d end up missing at least the confirmation vote on Richard Cordray as head of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. I would have to tell Harry he couldn’t count on me to be there for the vote. I owed him an explanation as to why.

  We met in his office in the Capitol Building. I brought him up to speed on the conversations with Salem and explained that President Obama wanted me to travel to Muscat to meet with the sultan. I started to explain why it was important the trip remain secret, but he stopped me before I got very far—he understood the sensit
ivity and said he was unlikely to get the nomination through the Senate anyway (Cordray wouldn’t be officially confirmed until July 2013).

  It was one of the many times I was grateful to have Harry in the leader’s office. He was tough as nails on the Senate floor, but behind closed doors, you couldn’t find a more supportive colleague. He told me he thought the trip was a good idea. He wanted me to know that he would hold anything I told him in the strictest confidence. And from then until this day he has kept his word. That’s the old Senate.

  The secrecy also applied to my own staff. Only a couple of my aides were briefed on the full story. When it became clear the Cordray vote would happen while I was gone, we knew the press would inquire about my absence. We never lied to the press, but when the inquiries poured in, my chief of staff told our press team to make no comment and absorb whatever hits followed. Lucky for us, the story died after forty-eight hours.

  I arrived at the sultan’s palace on the morning of December 8, 2011. I had never met Sultan Qaboos, but I knew his reputation as a thoughtful interlocutor with good relations on both sides of the region’s sectarian divide and as a leader who had taken his country from dirt roads to modernity. He had come to power in the 1970s, when Oman had little in the way of infrastructure, health care and education. The sultan used his country’s oil revenues to build schools, hospitals and roads and deliver clean water. He had long worked to bridge the divide between Sunni Gulf states and Shia nations like Iran—even at risk to his relationship with his Gulf partners. His impartiality made him one of the few leaders trusted by both the U.S. president and the Iranian supreme leader.