by John Bolton;
I wasn’t entirely passive on that score, encouraging Netanyahu to call Trump on July 10 to stiffen his spine.60 Within two hours, Trump tweeted:
Iran has long been secretly ‘enriching,’ in total violation of the terrible 150 Billion Dollar deal made by John Kerry and the Obama Administration. Remember, that deal was to expire in a short number of years. Sanctions will soon be increased, substantially!
We were developing an escort program for commercial vessels in the Gulf, known as Operation Sentinel, with the Saudis and Emiratis participating, as well as Brits and other Europeans, which would at least discourage that form of Iranian interference with global oil markets.61 Earlier, on July 4, UK Royal Marines, acting at the request of Gibraltar’s government, had seized the Iranian-owned Grace 1 tanker for violating EU sanctions on Syria. In response, on July 10, Iran tried to seize the UK-owned British Heritage tanker in the Strait of Hormuz; on July 13 it did capture an Emirati-owned, Panamanian-flagged tanker, the Riah; and then on July 19, they finally got what they wanted, seizing the UK-flagged, Swedish-owned Stena Impero. Obviously, Iran aimed to swap the Grace 1 (by now renamed Adrian Darya 1) for the Stena Impero, although the two seizures were hardly equivalent. Unfortunately, a swap was just what the Brits were looking for.
Clearly, the game was still very much afoot unless and until we had Operation Sentinel in place, which was proving more difficult than anticipated because many countries hesitated to join. Part of the hesitation was doubtless due to the instinct for appeasement, but part of it was due to uncertainty about US resolve and staying power because of Trump’s erratic moves. Due both to their devotion to saving the Iran nuclear deal and their desire not to have anything else distract from the existential imperative of achieving Brexit, even Boris Johnson’s new government didn’t hold firm, releasing the Grace 1 under a commitment not to offload its oil cargo in Syria, a promise worth exactly what London received in return for it. They simply didn’t want to have a struggle. Another bad lesson, doubtless duly noted in Tehran.
The next day, July 11, my new French counterpart Emmanuel Bonne called me from Paris, having just returned from Iran. Khamenei himself, he said, had flatly rejected his efforts. Iran’s formula was “maximum resistance to maximum pressure,” which was exactly the line Iran began to use publicly.62 While some sanctions relief could allow negotiations, Iran’s ballistic-missile program was off the table entirely, Zarif had made clear. Rouhani had been equally firm: Iran believed it would win in the end, and they were ready to oppose US escalation with any available means. When Bonne said Macron asked for an economic cease-fire, Rouhani said he wanted such a cease-fire, but only the total lifting of US sanctions would bring Iran back into compliance with the nuclear deal, which was ridiculous. Just to be clear, Rouhani had also stressed that the Supreme Leader approved this position.63 I promised to let Trump know of his report and went to see him about three thirty p.m. Trump responded, “That’s it. Withdraw the offer. Sanction the shit out of them. Get ready to hit the […] sites [an ellipsis required here by the pre-publication clearance process],” which we had discussed back and forth. Then Trump was back to getting out of Syria. As I left the Oval, Mnuchin was waiting outside, so I took the opportunity to tell him the good news about the collapse of the French effort with Iran.
Rand Paul, by this time, was working to have Zarif come from New York to Washington to meet with Trump,64 as North Korea’s Kim Yong Chol had done the year before. Just in case, I prepared at home a typed copy of my two-sentence resignation letter, handwritten in June, to bring in at a moment’s notice. I was ready.
Despite the rebuff from Iran, Macron’s effort to make concessions to keep the nuclear deal alive resumed unabated. This was not improving the nuclear deal but degrading it even further, in desperate and increasingly dangerous ways, simply to keep the shell of the agreement alive. It would have been laughable were Trump not succumbing to the subversion of his own stated policy. Trump had moments where he came back on course, such as when he finally publicly repudiated the Rand Paul gambit on July 19.65 He said to me the next day, “Rand Paul is not the right person to negotiate this. He’s a peacenik. I got out of that yesterday, did you see?” I didn’t let the opportunity pass to note that Mark Levin, on his radio show the night before, had said that Paul’s foreign policy was essentially the same as that of Ilhan Omar, the radical Democratic House member from Minnesota. On a subsequent Macron call, Trump explained about the defensive action the USS Boxer, an amphibious assault vessel, had taken, shooting down an Iranian drone coming unacceptably close to the ship.66 At least we were still defending ourselves, although the cost of the Iranian drone was trivial compared to that of the downed Global Hawk. Macron had nothing new to offer, and Trump continued to assert he would speak directly with the Iranians. Macron’s direction remained unchanged.
Trump seemed to understand this from time to time, as on August 8, when he said to me about Macron, “Everything he touches turns to shit.” That had the right tone. Pompeo and I discussed Macron’s involvement continuously, and later that day, after meeting with Trump, Pompeo burst into my office and, laughing already, said, “I’ve solved your problem for you. He has tweeted about Macron by now for sure, look it up,” which I quickly did, finding that just minutes earlier, Trump had proclaimed:
Iran is in serious financial trouble. They want desperately to talk to the U.S., but are given mixed signals from all of those purporting to represent us, including President Macron of France… I know Emmanuel means well, as do all others, but nobody speaks for the United States but the United States itself. No one is authorized in any way, shape, or form, to represent us!
Pompeo and I were now rolling in the aisles, believing mistakenly that Macron’s effort was effectively dead. It was not.
That was evident as preparations for the Biarritz G7 in late August accelerated. Despite rumors France would invite Rouhani to attend as a guest, Bonne repeatedly denied to me this was true. And it wasn’t true—they were inviting Zarif. Trump was wildly unenthusiastic about attending yet another G7 after the fun at Charlevoix in 2018, and several times told me and others he would arrive late and leave early. The French were trying to nibble us to death on “deliverables” from the G7 and being generally unhelpful on logistics and security issues, which was driving the Secret Service and White House advance teams to distraction. Substantively, Bonne and others were clear Iran was Macron’s highest priority, which was obviously worrying. Macron was not taking no for an answer, in part because Mnuchin was still encouraging with Le Maire the idea that there was a deal to be done.
Trump was so uninterested in the G7 it was hard for Kudlow and me to schedule a briefing for him, but we finally did on Tuesday, August 20, four days before the summit began. Trump heard a long list of complaints from Kudlow, the Secret Service, and the White House advance people, so he decided to call Macron with us all in the Oval, reaching him at about five p.m. Washington time.67 Trump had others address the issues and then launched into complaining about how badly Macron had treated him on earlier visits (like the famous insult about nationalism versus patriotism at the November Armistice Day ceremony). Macron broke in to say it was eleven p.m. in France, and that he had asked for a phone call two days earlier. Trump exploded, pausing on the call to turn to me and said, “I wasn’t told about that, goddamn it, Bolton, you should have told me. I hear that from everybody. Give me those fucking calls.” I said that in fact Macron had not done so, but Trump was not dissuaded. Reportedly, Trump had, early on, accused Michael Flynn of withholding a call to him from Putin.68 Perhaps Trump thought he was still the victim of an ongoing conspiracy.
I came close to walking out of the Oval at that point, but that would have required resigning, which I was certainly close to doing. I didn’t want to do so over this point, however, since he and Macron were both wrong. Bonne had e-mailed me for several days asking when we would arrive in Biarritz, and I had e-mailed back that we were still working on it, looking for a t
ime to hear from Trump what his preference was. The day before, Bonne had asked that Macron brief Trump on his recent meeting with Putin in Moscow. I suggested we schedule it once we had had our G7 planning session with Trump, so the two leaders could discuss both issues. Bonne agreed, which was entirely sensible and efficient for both sides. Of course, I didn’t tell Bonne that, in my assessment, Trump had until then paid no attention whatever to the G7.
This conversation with Macron rambled on to six p.m. When it finished, I stayed behind to pin down a decision on whether Trump should travel to Denmark after the summit. Trump had calmed down by then, and began dictating a tweet on why he wasn’t going to Denmark but would in the future. With that in hand, as I was leaving the Oval, I was handed a note from Kupperman saying that another MQ-9 drone had been shot down, this one apparently by the Houthis over Yemen.69 Although we were still receiving information, the Houthis had already claimed credit in social media, so I went back in to tell Trump. Trump responded immediately, “I want retribution. Bring me some options later,” which I said we would do.
Back in my office, I told Kupperman what Trump had said to me in the Macron call, and Kupperman said, “Trump should apologize to you.” I said, “That’s never going to happen.”
The next day, however, after the regular intel briefing, I stayed behind to show Trump the printed-out e-mail exchange between Bonne and myself, showing that a possible Macron-Trump call had been well under control and certainly not withheld from him. I had no expectation Trump would read the e-mails, any more than he read most other things, but I did want him to know I had spoken honestly when I said I had not kept Macron from reaching him. Trump responded, “I shouldn’t have yelled at you. I’m sorry, I have too much respect for you. But people don’t get through to me.” This last sentence was as inaccurate then as it had been the evening before, but it was hardly worth contesting in the abstract.
I left for Biarritz early on Friday, August 23, flying through the day and arriving there in the early evening to make preparations for Trump’s arrival midday on Saturday. He reached his hotel at one thirty, and we heard unexpectedly he would have lunch with Macron at two p.m., which was not previously scheduled. I had committed to do other meetings, which I hastily canceled, to get to the Hotel du Palais, where the G7 leaders were staying. When I arrived, Trump and Macron were sitting at a table on the veranda doing a press conference. Others on the French and US delegations were gathered around a separate table nearby. What I did not learn until the next day, Sunday, was that Iran was almost the sole topic between Macron and Trump, specifically whether Trump should meet with Zarif, who was on his way to Biarritz, probably from Paris, where he had been holed up since meeting Macron the day before. Trump later told Abe that the one-on-one lunch with Macron was the best hour and one half he’d ever spent.
On Sunday morning, Trump and Britain’s Boris Johnson had breakfast, their first meeting since Johnson had become Prime Minister. Inevitably, the subject of Iraq came up, and Johnson engaged in some friendly teasing by saying, “I agree with the President that ‘democracy building’ was a mistake. Are we done with the regime change era, John?” I laughed and said, “Well, that’s a sensitive subject,” but made the point that pursuing “regime change” in certain circumstances was not the same thing as “democracy promotion” or “nation building.” Out of nowhere, Trump then said, “John’s done a good job. When he walks into a room, Xi Jinping and these others take notice,” which caused general merriment, as he turned to me, smiled, and said, “It’s true.” That was nice. While it lasted.
The G7 meetings proceeded through lunch on Sunday until the bombshell hit, as rumors swept through the Bellevue Conference Center that Zarif was on a plane landing imminently in Biarritz. As we tried to get the facts, I received an e-mail from Pompeo asking that I call him immediately, which I did at about 3:40 P.M. He reported a call he had just had with Netanyahu about an Israeli air strike in Syria the night before, directed against Iranian threats to Israel, a not infrequent occurrence because, unlike the Trump Administration, Israel did not hesitate to squash threats preemptively.70 We discussed how we should proceed in light of the Israeli strike, and I then told Pompeo what I was hearing about Zarif’s showing up in Biarritz, which he didn’t know anything about. I explained I was about to head back to the Bellevue and would keep him posted. There, I tracked Mulvaney down, and he said he was unaware of any possible contact with Zarif, although he had heard the same rumors I had. I sent a note into the G7 leaders’ meeting for Kelly Ann Shaw, the US sherpa, to pass to Trump, describing what we knew of Zarif’s whereabouts. She sent a note back saying Trump had read mine and told her Macron had invited him to meet Zarif today. “POTUS definitely wants to do this,” she wrote.
I sat alone in an unused bilateral meeting room to gather my thoughts. I told NSC staff to get in touch with our pilots to create an alternative flight itinerary for later that day or Monday. Instead of going to Kiev and the other stops before Warsaw, I wanted a flight plan back to Joint Base Andrews. I didn’t say why, but if Trump met with Zarif, my inclination was to return home and resign. I could see no purpose for continuing the rest of the trip if I knew I would resign when I finally got back to the White House. I decided I might as well do it now and get it over with.
Bizarrely, we then had a Trump bilateral with Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, where Iran barely came up, and I rode in Trump’s motorcade back to the Hotel du Palais, to talk to him privately about this Zarif meeting. By then I had an e-mail from Pompeo, who had again spoken to Netanyahu. Netanyahu had heard about the possible Zarif meeting and was pressing to call Trump at five thirty p.m. Biarritz time, which was fast approaching. After arriving at the hotel, I spoke again with Pompeo while waiting to meet Trump in his suite. I told him I would do what I could about Netanyahu’s call, but I was determined to make one more effort to talk Trump out of meeting with Zarif. Netanyahu and Israel’s Ambassador Ron Dermer were also calling me, so I asked Pompeo to tell them I felt like the Light Brigade, outcome TBD. On Trump’s floor, I found Mulvaney and Kushner. Kushner was on the phone to David Friedman, US Ambassador to Israel, telling Friedman that he was not going to allow Netanyahu’s call to go through. (Now we knew who was stopping all those calls to Trump!) When he hung up, Kushner explained he had stopped this and an earlier effort by Netanyahu because he didn’t think it was appropriate for a foreign leader to talk to Trump about whom he should speak to.
I told Mulvaney I needed to brief Trump on Israel’s overnight military activity in Syria,71 as well as Iran. Mulvaney said Trump had told him in the car to the hotel that Macron had used the Saturday lunch with Trump to make the invitation to meet Zarif. Trump had then invited Mnuchin over to their table, to discuss the Zarif issue and to suggest that Mnuchin meet with Zarif in lieu of Trump. Mulvaney said Trump also told him Kushner knew about the possible Zarif meeting. I went into Trump’s suite at about 5:25, accompanied by Mulvaney and Kushner. Trump started off by asking why I hadn’t wanted to do the Sunday talk shows (!). I explained Mnuchin, Kudlow, and Lighthizer had rightly done them that day because of our effort to refocus the G7 on economic rather than political issues. Trump accepted the explanation, which at least had the small virtue of being true.
I then described to Trump the Israeli military operation. Trump raised Zarif, said he wanted to meet with him, and asked, “Do you think it’s a good idea?” “No, sir, I do not,” I answered, and then laid out why this was not the moment to meet, let alone to relax the economic sanctions, let alone still further to extend the $5–15 billion credit line France had proposed and Mnuchin had been negotiating with Le Maire.72 I said that once we took the pressure off Iran, it would be very hard to put it back on (just like with North Korea). Even a little economic relief went a long way to sustaining countries under tough sanctions, but we had no way of knowing how much actual behavioral change we were going to get from Iran. Trump asked Mulvaney and Kushner what they thought. Mulvaney agreed with me
, but Kushner said he would have the meeting because there was nothing to lose. These people had an attention span no longer than the deal in front of them. Then, as if a light went off in Trump’s head, he said, “They’re not getting any line of credit until the whole deal’s done. I’m not agreeing to anything just to get them to stop violating the [nuclear deal].” That, of course, was the precise opposite of what Macron was proposing. Although Trump’s comment was better than where I feared ending up, I still pressed him not to meet with Zarif. “I still think I’ll see him,” Trump said, “it would be in private, maybe just a handshake.” I again urged him not to do it, and the meeting ended.
Out in the hallway, Mulvaney, Kushner, and I spoke for a few minutes more. I explained that Macron had a screw loose if he thought any reputable financial institution was waiting around to extend a line of credit to Iran. We all at least agreed Macron was a weasel (that was my recollection) and that he would try to take credit for whatever meeting did take place. I came away more convinced that Mulvaney had not known anything about this mess until I spoke with him at the Bellevue center earlier in the afternoon. I called Pompeo a third time at about six fifteen p.m. to fill him in. “So, we have Mnuchin and Jared, two Democrats, running our foreign policy,” he said when I finished my report, which struck me as about right. He added, “We have a substance problem here, and a massive process problem,” both of which were clear. “It’s the President’s inclination to have this meeting, and he’s canvassing the world until he finds someone who agrees with him” (also correct). I responded that if the meeting took place, I would undoubtedly resign, and that even if it didn’t, I might resign anyway. “I’m with you,” said Pompeo. I waited into the evening for word Trump’s meeting with Zarif had taken place, expecting to be awakened to hear the news at some point, but it never came.
