The Iran Wars

by Jay Solomon

  Secretary Moniz told me: “I think the real issue is what’s going to happen on a decadal timeline on a range of behavior. The deal is a deal. It’s not based on trust. It’s really a verification-based deal on top of the rollback. But, obviously, we’d all love to see this maybe becoming the beginning of a reestablished relationship with us and the world community.”

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  QUESTIONS ALSO REMAIN OVER whether the United States’ own political system will allow a rapprochement with Iran to take root. Democratic leaders, including Hillary Clinton, have supported the nuclear deal, but Clinton has vowed to aggressively challenge Tehran’s regional activities if elected. She’s also bluntly said she’d bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities if Tehran is found to be cheating on the deal. Republican leaders have been even more aggressive, vowing to tear up the agreement in the years ahead.

  Barack Obama, meanwhile, has resigned himself to the fact that his Iran diplomacy will likely define the success or failure of his presidency, at least on the international stage. “Look, 20 years from now, I’m still going to be around, God willing. If Iran has a nuclear weapon, it’s my name on this,” Obama told The Atlantic in the weeks after the deal’s signing. “I think it’s fair to say that in addition to our profound national-security interests, I have a personal interest in locking this down.”

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  THE IRAN WARS THAT have played out over the past fifteen years have consumed the United States’ foreign policy agenda unlike any other single issue on the international stage. The Obama administration argues that the restraints placed on Iran’s nuclear capabilities will offer a window for more responsible political actors to gain power in Tehran and forge a better relationship with the West. The diminished threat of an Iranian nuclear weapon, at least in the near term, reduces the threat of the United States’ being ensnared in yet another Middle East war, President Obama has calculated. Washington can then shift its focus to Asia and Latin America, where booming economies offer Americans the opportunity to profit rather than fight.

  But the history of Iran since the 1979 Islamic revolution suggests that the next U.S. administration must be prepared to confront an Iranian regime just as hostile to the West as past ones. Indeed, the conflict that has raged between the two countries over the past two decades has deepened, in many ways, the animosity that exists between the countries’ militaries and spy agencies. New forms of warfare have emerged that have led Washington and Tehran to take their fight into new theaters, particularly cyberspace and the financial markets, and away from the traditional battlefield. Oil and sanctions are now part of each country’s arsenal, adding an even more complex dynamic to the conflict.

  The Iranian regime has shown little sign of toning down its animosity toward Washington and its allies in the aftermath of the Vienna agreement. The Revolutionary Guard continues to develop increasingly sophisticated weapons systems, including ballistic missiles inscribed with threats against Israel on their nose cones. Khamenei and other revolutionary leaders, meanwhile, fine-tune their rhetorical attacks against the United States, seeming to need the American threat to justify their existence.

  The constraints placed on Iran’s nuclear program over the next fifteen years offer an opportunity to calm the Middle East, as even critics in Israel and many Arab states acknowledge. But there are also real risks that a much bigger and broader war is brewing in the region, and that the United States will inevitably be drawn in.

  The conflict between Iran and the United States’ closest Arab allies, particularly Saudi Arabia, has intensified over the past two years. It’s been fueled, in some ways, by Washington’s attempts to build ties with Iran. Arab leaders obsess about a new U.S.-Iranian compact eclipsing the power of the Sunni states in favor of a “Shiite axis.” They’ve made clear to the White House and Pentagon that they’ll go it alone and confront Tehran across the region if the United States won’t support their cause.

  The principal battle line in this Sunni-Shiite and Saudi-Iranian conflict has been Syria. Tehran’s unbending support for the Assad regime has fueled the flow of arms to anti-government militias from Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates. But it’s also hastened the emergence of powerful, and radical, Sunni militias such as the Islamic State. This battle has spread into Yemen, Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, and Turkey.

  This rivalry raises the prospects of a nuclear arms race spreading across the Middle East as Saudi Arabia and its Sunni allies seek to match the technologies Iran has been allowed to amass. The costs of the Vienna agreement could only grow, and this Iran deal, rather than calming the world’s most combustible region, risks further enflaming it. The Iran wars could just be entering a new chapter.

  To my son, Hudson,

  my father, Richard Solomon,

  and to Michael Adler.

  The future, present, and the past

  Acknowledgments

  In the summer of 2006, I was in Laguna Beach, California, on a lazy summer vacation, when I received a phone call from an editor at The Wall Street Journal and was told to get ready to travel to the Middle East. The Lebanese militia and political party, Hezbollah, had just kidnapped two Israeli soldiers, and killed three others, after ambushing an Israeli tank near the Lebanese border. The Israel Defense Forces were beginning to retaliate by launching airstrikes on Lebanon, and the Journal wanted me in the position to cover a potentially widening regional war.

  At the time, I’d barely stepped foot in the Middle East, despite working for more than a decade as a foreign correspondent. I’d covered conflict and Islamic terrorism in countries ranging from Indonesia to Pakistan. But I was a novice in understanding the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict and its entrenched politics and raw emotions. I’d also never faced firsthand the violence fueled by the Middle East’s ethnic, religious, and clan feuds.

  Arriving in Amman, Jordan, that July, I had little time to acclimate myself to the rapidly changing story before I was ordered to drive overland to Lebanon. The Israelis had blown out Beirut’s international airport. I hired a local taxi for thousands of dollars and drove surreptitiously from Jordan through Syria and then over the border into Lebanon. My driver snaked through the steep mountain passes of the Bekaa Valley en route to Beirut, calling ahead to spotters to make sure we wouldn’t be targeted by Israeli aircraft or come across bombed-out bridges. Convoys of cars and trucks were on the road. But they were all headed in the opposite direction—an ominous sign.

  I was stunned by what I saw after eventually arriving in Beirut. The Mediterranean city, known as the Paris of the Middle East, wasn’t exactly the hellhole I’d imagined after reading about Lebanon’s decades of civil war. Spectacular ocean views and sunsets greeted me from my hotel veranda. Many nightclubs were still open. And scantily clad Lebanese women strolled the streets of Beirut’s eastern enclave.

  But the city was under siege, and the Israelis seemed determined to punish the Lebanese collectively by blowing up their country’s power grids, freeways, and even its coastal lighthouse. The Beirutis seethed and cursed the Israelis as the bombings continued deep into the summer and the death toll rose. But many also blamed an invisible actor in the tragedy—one they said was driving Hezbollah to confront the Israelis from behind the scenes. The Lebanese militia would never have attacked the Jewish state without the green light of Iran, Hezbollah’s chief financier, arms supplier, and religious guide, Lebanese leaders fumed. The Iranians were happy to sacrifice thousands of Lebanese in support of their regional rivalry with Israel and the United States, but without placing Tehran’s own men at risk.

  Iran was out of sight that summer in the Levant. But it was definitely not out of mind. The Islamic Republic, far from its borders, was inserting itself in the region’s most intractable conflict through its support of Hezbollah, and seeking to lead the Islamic world against the West. This was a direct challenge to the United States.

  The Lebanon war sparked my fixation on Iran and its role in the Middle East. And this would dri
ve my coverage at The Wall Street Journal for the next decade. The battle that summer wasn’t just about the Arab-Israeli dispute. It was about Iran’s quest for regional dominance.

  In the wake of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States, the American public became consumed by the hunt for al Qaeda’s leadership and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. But behind the headlines, the conflict between the United States and Iran, as well as their proxies, emerged as perhaps the single most important factor driving the region’s carnage, from Iraq to Lebanon to Syria. Revelations of Iran’s covert nuclear program and apparent designs to develop an atomic weapon only added more fuel to the fire.

  I, therefore, set out to cover the U.S.-Iran conflict in the years following 9/11 from every angle that emerged and from every region. This proved to be a daunting task as Washington’s efforts to check Tehran—and vice versa—grew to consume the entire U.S. national security apparatus. Military might and traditional espionage were key parts of this endeavor. But cyber warfare, financial sanctions, and, ultimately, secret diplomacy dominated as President Barack Obama radically shifted U.S. foreign policy away from that of the George W. Bush administration.

  The Iran Wars is the fruit of this past decade of work. And, in all honesty, I had my doubts at times it would be completed. Initially envisaged in 2012 as a look at the U.S.-Iranian rivalry, and whether it might lead to a direct military conflict, the story radically shifted as news broke out the following year about the secret diplomacy in Oman. A book that at first sought to assess the potential for another Middle East war quickly morphed into a study of diplomacy and the prospects for two historical enemies coming to an accommodation with each other.

  At this writing, the chances for success remain highly uncertain. But the nuclear accord in Vienna has fueled tremendous hope for a new relationship emerging between the United States and Iran and for Tehran to be reintegrated into the global community. I’ve tried in these pages to inject a healthy amount of honesty and skepticism into what’s become a highly polarized debate on Iran. Walking a straight line, and threading a loop, is not an easy task when writing about U.S.-Iranian relations, as I found out. This was particularly the case in a political environment where the middle ground in Washington evaporated. I hope the readers of this book will recognize the sincere effort I made to chart a balanced path.

  I owe an enormous amount of gratitude to The Wall Street Journal, and its editors and reporters, for helping me complete The Iran Wars. The paper gave me tremendous freedom and resources to track the Iran story in recent years as it raced across the Middle East and into the hotels and conference rooms of Europe. The story became so dominant that I worried at times I was neglecting my broader job as the paper’s foreign affairs correspondent. But the Journal’s leadership understood the global importance of the Iran story and how it will almost certainly define President Obama’s legacy. I’d particularly like to thank the Journal’s Washington bureau chief, Jerry Seib, and national security editor, Robert Ourlian, for putting up with my disappearing for a few weeks now and then to finish the manuscript. I also greatly appreciate the support of Editor in Chief Gerard Baker and his deputies, Rebecca Blumenstein and Matt Murray, as well as page one honcho Matthew Rose.

  The Wall Street Journal’s reporting staff both in Washington and the Middle East is exceptional. Carol E. Lee at the White House and national security reporter Adam Entous broke numerous scoops on Iran as the story played out during President Obama’s second term. Julian Barnes and Gordon Lubold at the Pentagon assessed the potential for U.S. conflict with Iran, and Felicia Schwartz at the State Department followed Secretary of State John Kerry’s endless globe-trotting in search of the nuclear deal.

  Our reporters based overseas did a crack job of tracking Iran’s efforts to profit from the Arab Spring and to spread its influence regionally. I’d particularly like to acknowledge Farnaz Fassihi, the top Iran expert at the paper; Sam Dagher, who raced in and out of Syria after the onset of the civil war there; Nour Malas, who also took exceptional risks reporting on her native Syria; and Asa Fitch and Benoit Faucon, who were great collaborators in covering the financial war on Iran.

  A close-knit, but not always agreeable, group of journalists and analysts closely followed the Iran diplomacy as it took root in Switzerland, Austria, and New York in late 2013. My Brussels-based colleague Laurence Norman was an incredible ally in enduring the grueling negotiations that stretched on for weeks on end in Geneva and Vienna. It was no secret that he was always on the beat well before I stumbled down from my hotel room. Lou Charbonneau of Reuters, Julian Borger of The Guardian, Michael Gordon and David Sanger of The New York Times, and Bradley Klapper and Matthew Lee of the Associated Press were all wonderful colleagues over the past three years. I’m only sad that Michael Adler, the great correspondent of Agence France-Presse, didn’t get to report on the final negotiations. He passed away in the summer of 2014. No journalist tracked the Iranian nuclear program more closely over the past decade than Michael, from both Washington and Europe.

  In the United States, Middle East, and Europe, a skilled group of Iran analysts, nuclear experts, and sanctions aficionados helped me understand the incredibly complex dimensions of the Iran standoff. In the nuclear field, I’d like to thank David Albright, Olli Heinonen, and Robert Einhorn for spending hours explaining to me the history of Iran’s nuclear program. Mark Dubowitz, David Asher, Juan Zarate, Avi Jorisch, and Stuart Levey were invaluable in describing the often-arcane laws and strategies tied to running a financial war. And on the broader issue of Iran in the world, I’d like to thank Karim Sadjadpour of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Hossein Mousavian of Princeton University, Andrew Tabler of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and Emile Hokayem of the International Institute of Strategic Studies.

  Former colleagues and mentors were instrumental in helping my journalism career over the years. John McBeth of the Far Eastern Economic Review took me under his wing in Indonesia during the late 1990s and taught me how to be a foreign correspondent. I’ll always remember talking and writing in his lime-green Jakarta office as we covered the final months of President Suharto. My first editors at the Journal, Marcus Brauchli, Peter Waldman, and Michael Williams, were critical in helping me learn how to make the complexities of international stories accessible to U.S. readers. They were also all good friends.

  The Iran Wars was initially conceptualized in 2012 with my agents Gail Ross and Howard Yoon, when talk of war with Iran was still rife. I want to thank both of them for sticking with me through a process that took far longer than I think any of us initially imagined. But they were patient with me as the news took control of the project and led it in new directions. I appreciate their confidence in me.

  At Random House, Will Murphy and Molly Turpin were great co-pilots in navigating a book that definitely took on a life of its own. Will, a fellow Berkeley alum, knew exactly when to step in, and when not to, over the past two years as Iran dominated the global news headlines. Molly was tireless in going through literally every page of the book with me after the Vienna agreement was completed in mid-2015. Her fresh eye and enthusiasm repeatedly picked me up when I was spent mentally and too close to the writing.

  Finally, I want to thank my family for bearing with me through the final stages of the book. My father, Richard, and his wife, Anne Solomon, always gave me encouragement and pep talks during Sunday dinners at their Washington home. My mother, Carol, encouraged me to write, even in my younger years when I spent way more time playing volleyball than studying in high school and college. My sister, Lisa Solomon, and brother-in-law, Randall Davidson, cheered me on throughout the project. And my son, Hudson, arrived as a blessing in early 2013, not long after I committed to writing The Iran Wars. I was comforted and inspired by him looking over my shoulder as I typed away. I look forward to spending much more time with Hudson now that the project is completed.

  Notes

  PROLOGUE: A DIPLOMATI
C RUSE

  On September 26, 2013, Secretary of State John Kerry: Author’s notes from covering P5+1 meeting on Iran in New York at the UN General Assembly.

  “We hope to be able to make progress”: Ibid.

  “I think all of us were pleased”: Ibid.

  A scheduled fifteen-minute meet-and-greet: Author interviews with three U.S. officials briefed on the Kerry-Zarif meeting.

  “The president and I both had a sense”: Author interview with John Kerry.

  “there was definitely a fear that strikes”: Author interview with Fred Hof.

  “Whether the deal is approved or disapproved”: Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iranian state television, July 18, 2015.

  “The White House bet the farm on reaching an accommodation”: Author interview with senior Israeli official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

  CHAPTER 1: THE PERSIAN DOMINO

  In the northern hills of Tehran lies a tribute: Author’s notes from 2014 visit to the Holy Defense Museum in Tehran.

  “How could you have worked with Saddam?”: Ibid.

  “You both respect them, but also realize”: Author interview with Bill Murray.

  “An effective policy on Iraq offers the United States”: David Wurmser, Tyranny’s Ally: America’s Failure to Defeat Saddam Hussein (Washington: AEI Press, 1999), 72.