Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War

by Gates, Robert M

  I had hoped for UN action in January or February; the resolution passed in June 2010. The resolution was better than nothing, but it demonstrated that Russia and China remained ambivalent about how hard to push Tehran. China was leery of losing the significant amount of oil it bought from Iran and, in any event, was in no mood to do anything remotely helpful to the United States after we announced the sale of $6.5 billion in arms to Taiwan at the end of January 2010. Russia, I think, still harbored hopes of future economic and political influence in Iran.

  Bush and Obama had said publicly that the military option to stop Iran’s nuclear program remained on the table, and it was our job at the Pentagon to do the planning and preparation to ensure that it was not an idle threat. U.S. military leaders were increasingly worried that either the Israelis or the Iranians might take military action with little or no warning and that such an action could require an immediate response from U.S. forces in the Gulf. There would be no time for protracted meetings in Washington or for the president to consult anyone but me, the next person in the chain of command. Other than the U.S. response to a small-scale Iranian “fast-boat” attack on one of our Navy ships, there had been no discussion in either the Bush or the Obama administrations—other than private conversations I had with each president—about momentous decisions that might be required within minutes if serious shooting broke out in the Gulf. It was my view that such a discussion was long overdue.

  Accordingly, on January 4, 2010, I sent Jim Jones a memo recommending a highly restricted meeting of the principals to discuss the possibility of a conflict with Iran with little or no advance notice. I wanted to discuss actions we ought to take to strengthen our military posture in the Gulf for Iran-related contingencies, as well as military actions we ought to consider—short of the use of force—to keep the pressure on. I asked in the memo, if Israel attacked Iran, would we help Israel, hinder it, take no action, or conduct follow-up operations (especially if Israel failed to destroy the nuclear sites)? If Iran retaliated against Israel, would we come to Israel’s defense? If Iran were to hit U.S. troops, facilities, or interests in retaliation after an Israeli strike, how would we respond? What measures should we take to deter Iranian military actions, to maintain “escalation dominance” (to overmatch any Iranian military action and try to keep the situation from spinning out of control)? Should we emplace forces in advance? How would we respond to closure of the Gulf, terrorism, manipulation of oil prices, and other Iranian responses? Many of these questions and issues had been framed for me by the deputy assistant secretary for defense, Colin Kahl, and his team, whom I greatly admired and relied upon heavily. The questions I posed, and the answers, had not been discussed—in part, I think, because the consequences of a leak could be explosive, both literally and figuratively.

  A little over three months later, on April 18, The New York Times ran a front-page story asserting that in my January memo I had warned that “the United States does not have an effective long-range policy for dealing with Iran’s steady progress toward nuclear capability.” A source characterized as a “senior official” described the memo as a “wake-up call.” It seemed likely that the authors’ (David Sanger and Thom Shanker) source apparently did not provide them with any of the questions I had posed but rather characterized the memo as dealing with policy, strategy, and military options.

  Geoff Morrell gave NSC chief of staff Denis McDonough a heads-up about the story before it appeared, and needless to say, he, Donilon, Ben Rhodes (the NSC’s strategic communications director), and others at the White House went into a tizzy over a story suggesting that the White House was not properly prepared to deal with Iran. I thought it would be silly to deny the existence of the memo and, in consultation with Morrell, Robert Rangel, and McDonough, agreed to issue a statement clarifying the purpose of the memo. The national press gave the Times’ story prominent coverage and, regrettably, paid little attention to my statement that the memo was not intended (or received) as a wake-up call but instead had “identified next steps in our defense planning process where further interagency discussion and policy decisions would be needed … it presented a number of questions and proposals intended to contribute to an orderly and timely decision making process.” (Much later others alleged that the memo called for “containment” of Iran rather than preventing them from getting a weapon. That assertion was also wrong.) The Times story was pretty accurate overall, but it did misrepresent my intent and—fortunately—did not deal with the militarily sensitive concerns I had raised.

  Three days later I went through many of those concerns in the Oval Office with the president. Biden, Mullen, Jones, Donilon, Brennan, and Tony Blinken, the vice president’s national security adviser, were there. I told Obama he needed to consider the ramifications of a no-warning Israeli attack or Iranian provocation, either of which likely would require a U.S. military response within minutes or hours. I said that the principals had not “chewed” on these issues, and they should. To be better prepared for any eventuality in the Gulf, I told Obama I wanted to take several military steps by November 1, including deploying a second aircraft carrier there, adding better missile defense and radar capabilities, sending a third Aegis destroyer, and forward-positioning other equipment. I asked that the policy issues and added deployments I recommended be addressed urgently, in particular because the military moves required significant lead time. Obama said we should look at options, but he would make no concrete decisions now.

  I was put off by the way the president closed the meeting. To his very closest advisers, he said, “For the record, and for those of you writing your memoirs, I am not making any decisions about Israel or Iran. Joe, you be my witness.” I was offended by his suspicion that any of us would ever write about such sensitive matters.

  Toward the end of May, we discussed the implications of an Israeli attack on Iran, though not as thoroughly as I would have liked. The administration did, however, proceed fairly quickly in important areas mentioned in my memo. It further strengthened our military relationships with key states in the region by providing (or selling) enhanced missile defense capabilities and advanced weapons and made proposals for closer military cooperation. In early February, I traveled to Turkey, where I met with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. We had a long discussion about Iran, during which he said that no country should be denied the right to nuclear technology for peaceful means; he said that he had encouraged the Iranians to be more transparent and cooperate with the IAEA. He was skeptical of the value of further sanctions and thought the Tehran Research Reactor proposal was still a possible course of action. I agreed about the right to peaceful use of nuclear technology “if properly safeguarded” but, in my usual subtle diplomatic way, warned him that if the Iranians proceeded with their nuclear weapons ambitions, proliferation in the region would be inevitable, military action by Israel would be likely, and he would have a war in his neighborhood. I told him it was necessary to proceed with sanctions in order to get Iran back to the negotiating table. Erdogan was interested in missile defenses that would provide coverage of Turkey but wanted to be sure that any initiative was cast in terms of “common security” among allies and not based on a specific threat (such as Iran). I felt I had made little progress with Erdogan; he was just too wary of anything that might provoke the Iranians.

  That was plainly not the case at my next stop, to see President Nicolas Sarkozy in France. Sarkozy reminded me of Rahm Emanuel, lithe and short and full of energy—they both sort of explode into a room. Sarkozy went straight to the point: “The Iranians are liars and have been lying from the start.” The extended U.S. hand, he said, had been seen in Iran as a sign of weakness. It had led to “a great deal of wasted time.” He regretted that new sanctions had not been put in place the preceding fall and asserted, “We are weak. This will all end badly.”

  In the middle of our meeting, Sarkozy’s personal cell phone rang. He answered, holding his hand over his phone and mouth as he talked with his
wife, singer and former model Carla Bruni. I had never heard of or experienced a head of government interrupting a meeting to take a personal call. The incident did, I admit, later that evening provoke some amusing commentary between my staff and me.

  In early March, I resumed my anti-Iran tour, visiting Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Outside Riyadh, I met with the crown prince and deputy prime minister as well as King Abdullah at the king’s “farm.” I grew up in Kansas, and this wasn’t like any farm I had ever seen. We had dinner inside a tent—with crystal chandeliers—that could have held the entire Ringling Brothers circus and then some. The huge, horseshoe-shaped table sat at least a hundred people, and as with Condi Rice’s and my dinner with the king a few years earlier in Jeddah, there were at least forty or fifty dishes in the buffet, not counting dozens of desserts. The king and I sat at the head of the table with no one seated near us, but a large television right in front of us was airing an Arab news show. I thought it a bit strange to have the TV on during dinner—until I realized the wily old guy wanted white noise in the background so he and I could speak without being overheard by anyone.

  After dinner, we talked privately for a long time about Iran, as I explained to him the president’s pivot from engagement to pressure, which the king heartily welcomed, having been opposed to any kind of outreach in the first place. As we talked about sanctions, I encouraged him to consider an overture to the Chinese, proposing that they sharply cut their purchases of Iranian oil, which Saudi Arabia would replace. I made no formal request, and he made no commitment. We discussed upgrading the Saudis’ Patriot missile defense systems, and we agreed to discuss further their acquisition of other, more advanced missile defenses. I promised to send the head of the Missile Defense Agency to Saudi Arabia quickly to brief the king and his ministers on these capabilities, which would also make the Saudi missile defense interoperable with our own and that of other countries in the Gulf. We talked about modernization of the Saudi navy.

  In that private meeting, the king committed to a $60 billion weapons deal including the purchase of eighty-four F-15s, the upgrade of seventy F-15s already in the Saudi air force, twenty-four Apache helicopters, and seventy-two Blackhawk helicopters. His ministers and generals had pressed him hard to buy either Russian or French fighters, but I think he suspected that was because some of the money would end up in their pockets. He wanted all the Saudi money to go toward military equipment, not into Swiss bank accounts, and thus he wanted to buy from us. The king explicitly told me that he saw the huge purchase as an investment in a long-term strategic relationship with the United States, linking our militaries for decades to come. At the same time, Abdullah was very cautious about any kind of overt military cooperation or planning with the United States that the Iranians might consider an act of war.

  I then went to Abu Dhabi, where I met with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed. “MBZ,” as we referred to him, is one of the smartest, canniest people I have ever met, very soft-spoken and given to long pauses in conversation. His thoughtful insights on the other Gulf states and on Iran were always useful. We met with a larger group for a few minutes, and then the two of us went outside on his patio to meet privately for an hour or so. We talked about the change in Obama’s Iranian strategy from engagement to pressure, making sanctions more effective (a lot of Iranian business was done in the UAE), and about additional missile defense and other military capabilities for the Emirates.

  Any sale of relatively sophisticated weapons—especially combat aircraft and missiles—to an Arab state met with opposition in Israel. In the case of the big arms deal I had just concluded with King Abdullah, the Israelis were especially exercised. And it came at a bad time in the relationship. The administration had leaned heavily on Netanyahu in the summer of 2009 to impose a ten-month freeze on building new settlements on the West Bank, as an inducement to get the Palestinians to the negotiating table. Meanwhile construction continued on settlements in East Jerusalem, which the Israelis consider their sovereign territory. As a result, the Palestinians refused to negotiate. In March 2010—just as I was talking with King Abdullah—the Israelis announced they would continue to build settlements in East Jerusalem, an open slap at the administration, made all the more insulting because Biden was visiting Israel at the time. Secretary Clinton presented an ultimatum to Israel soon thereafter, demanding among other things a freeze on all settlement construction. This led to a notoriously acrimonious meeting between Obama and Netanyahu at the White House on March 26, during which the president bowed out to have dinner with his family, leaving Bibi cooling his heels downstairs.

  As these tensions boiled, on April 27, Barak came to see me about the Saudi arms sale. As had become standard practice between us, I greeted his limousine curbside at the Pentagon, escorted him and his delegation up the stairs to my formal dining room, and then I walked him straight through the door to my office, where we met alone, leaving our delegations to chitchat for most of the allotted meeting time. As part of our relationship with Israel, the United States had long pledged that no arms sales to Arab states would undermine Israel’s “qualitative military edge” (QME). Barak felt the sale to Saudi Arabia compromised their QME. I told him I thought Israel and Saudi Arabia now had a common enemy—Iran—and that Israel should welcome enhanced Saudi capabilities. I also pointed out that not once in all of Israel’s wars had Saudi Arabia fired a shot. I urged that if Israel couldn’t see Saudi Arabia as a potential ally against Iran, he should at least tactically concede that its hostility to Iran was in Israel’s interest. Pragmatically, I warned that if the Saudis could not buy advanced combat aircraft from us, they would surely buy them from the French or Russians, and the Israelis could be damned sure those countries wouldn’t give a second thought to Israel’s “qualitative military edge.”

  We agreed to set up a joint U.S.-Israeli working group to ensure that Israel’s QME was not diminished by the F-15 sale to Saudi Arabia and to identify enhanced capabilities we could provide to Israel to satisfy that goal. I reassured Barak that, as I had promised two years earlier to Prime Minister Olmert, we would sell Israel the same model F-35 Joint Strike Fighter we were going to provide our NATO allies. Barak returned to Washington in late June to review progress of the working group and seemed generally satisfied that Israeli interests would be protected by the measures we were considering.

  Netanyahu took another view. I met with him at Blair House, the guesthouse on Pennsylvania Avenue that the president uses to host foreign leaders, on July 7. I told him I had my marching orders from the president, and that General Cartwright would lead a senior U.S. team to Israel the following week to talk about military cooperation and needs and to get “specifics about what you need and just how fast you want it.” I told Netanyahu we intended to notify Congress soon about the F-15 sale to Saudi Arabia, that we had addressed the QME issues with his defense experts, and that “it would be helpful for Israel to say that there had been an unprecedented effort to take into account Israel’s concerns, and that they did not object to the sale.” When he complained about the number of F-15s the Saudis would be buying or upgrading, I pointedly asked him, “When did Saudi Arabia ever attack Israel? How long would those planes continue to work without U.S. support? You need to talk to Ehud [Barak] about what we have done to address your concerns!” When Netanyahu asked how to explain to Israelis such a large arms deal with the Saudis, I used the line that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. He replied acidly, “In the Middle East, the enemy of my enemy is my ‘frenemy.’ ”

  “What about a counterbalancing investment in our military?” he asked me. “How do we compensate on the Israeli side?” Exasperated, I shot back that no U.S. administration had done more, in concrete ways, for Israel’s strategic defense than Obama’s, and I listed the various missile and rocket defense programs we were providing or helping to fund, together with stationing an Aegis-class warship with missile defense capabilities in the eastern Mediterranean. Further compensation? “You
are already getting air and missile defense cooperation in addition to the F-35. There have been conversations on all of this. This is not new. There has been enormous work done to address your QME. Talk to your defense minister!” I was furious after the meeting and directed Flournoy to call Barak and chew him out for not adequately briefing Bibi on all that we had done to address Israel’s concerns. Barak talked to Netanyahu, and by the end of July, Bibi had agreed not to object to the Saudi arms sale—in exchange for more military equipment, including twenty additional F-35s.

  Israel lives in a dangerous neighborhood, populated by various groups and countries that are not only its sworn enemies but committed to its total destruction. It has fought four wars against those neighbors, three of them—in 1948, 1967, and 1973—for its very survival. While a few governments, including Egypt’s and Jordan’s, have found it in their interest to make peace with Israel, the Arab populace—including in those two countries—is more hostile toward Israel than their governments are. I believe Israel’s strategic situation is worsening, its own actions contributing to its isolation. The Israelis’ assassination of a Hamas leader in Dubai in January 2010, however morally justified, was strategically stupid because the incompetently run operation was quickly discovered and Israel fingered as responsible, thus costing Israel the quiet cooperation of the UAE on security matters. Similarly, the Israeli attack on May 31, 2010, on a Turkish ship carrying confrontational activists to Gaza and the resulting deaths of eight Turks on board, together with Israel’s subsequent unyielding response, resulted in a break with Turkey, which had quietly developed a good military-to-military relationship with Israel. These incidents, and others like them, may have been tactically desirable and even necessary but had negative strategic consequences. As Israel’s neighbors acquire ever more sophisticated weapons and their publics become ever more hostile, I, as a very strong friend and supporter of Israel, believe Jerusalem needs to think anew about its strategic environment. That would require developing stronger relationships with governments that, while not allies, share Israel’s concerns in the region, including those about Iran and the growing political influence of Islamists in the wake of the Arab Spring. (Netanyahu would finally apologize for the Turkish deaths in 2013, opening the way to restoring ties with the Turks.) Given a Palestinian birthrate that far outpaces that of Israeli Jews, and the political trends in the region, time is not on Israel’s side.