“We only thought of Kim Jong Un as unpredictable. Now we had Trump as unpredictable,” said Joseph Yun, who until 2018 was President Trump’s special representative for North Korea’s policy. “And that I would communicate.”
Yun recalls that during the loss of confidence in North Korea in 2017, the Pentagon was waiting to give the president a wide range of military options, fearing that he might indeed order a major military attack on the North.
“You had to be careful what options you gave him,” he said. “We were very careful, because every option you put out there, he could use them.”
That frustrated the White House. “The White House considered it ‘Goddamn! The president is looking for all options!'” Yun recalls. But the Pentagon, at least under Secretary of Defense James Mattis, did not come.
Later, Trump decided that diplomacy was the way forward and met for two historic highs with Kim, even telling a 2018 rally in West Virginia that the “two were in love.”
A senior White House official told CNN that over North Korea “it was the president who in turn encouraged diplomacy over escalation. He took the historic step of meeting with KJU personally to encourage de-escalation. “
“Is this a joke?” Pentagon fired by request of Iranian military options
Back in 2019, as the president and his team considered military options against Iran in response to escalating attacks in the Persian Gulf, senior Pentagon officials told both U.S. partners in the region and Tehran that they could not predict how and where Trump would react, or if he would react at all.
“We told allies that we did not know what the president would be prepared to do against Iran,” recalled Mick Mulroy, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East until 2019. “It was possible he could make a decision that “would lead to an escalation of the conflict, and that escalation could lead to war, so they had to send that to Iran, so that they realized that not even his staff knew what would happen if they attacked another oil facility, for example.”
These warnings are part of a longer-term effort to contain some of the president’s worst impulses when confronted with military action abroad. Earlier, in September 2018, when a handful of mortar shells struck near the U.S. embassy in the fortified Green Sand of Baghdad causing no casualties or serious damage, Pentagon officials were surprised when they received a call from a senior official at the National Security Council demanding military options for the president to take revenge on Iran. That NSC official said the president wanted to know immediately how and when the United States could respond.
“The NSC called us in on a Sunday,” a former senior U.S. official told me. “[The NSC official] told in principle that we should have military options against Iran, today, on that day. ”
Pentagon officials were dumb. At a conference call with the White House, which included the Vice President of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Paul Selva, and Secretary of State for Defense John Rood, Selva crossed the line at the end of the Pentagon and turned him in disbelief to his colleagues.
“He said, ‘Is this a joke? Do they really want us to propose direct military action in Iran, against Iran, based on this?'” The same former senior US official told me. ‘And I said,’ No, we’ve been busy all morning. Have they spent some time in Iraq? “It’s a constant thing. ”
When they responded to the call, General Selva and Secretary Rood made it clear to their colleagues that they would not provide the White House with military options unless explicitly directed by the president himself.
“There is no way we will provide the NSC military options for this,” the former senior U.S. official recalled. “It just doesn’t make sense.”
That “urgent” request from the White House did not last. “It died right after that,” the official recalled.
A handful of mortars. One powerful demand for military options. Then shut up. It was simply the first of many times that the NSC would reach out to the Pentagon for military options against Iran, without warning and without the normal interrogation process to determine if a military response was warrated or wise.
The aftermath of those man-made mortars in September 2018 began a months-long wave of policy-making with Trump and Iran, alternating between urgency and action, threat and retreat. On which side would Trump stand up? And did he have a strategy?
In June 2019, President Trump would turn against revenge against Iran’s shootdown of a U.S. drone over international airspace, and call for military action with U.S. fighter jets already in the air. In September, he also decided against retaliation after an Iranian attack on oil facilities in Saudi Arabia that temporarily shut down half of Saudi oil production.
“‘I’m good, [the President] did not want to do it, so we are ready, ” Mulroy recalled. ‘The first time that happened, I think there was some sigh of relief. The second time I think there was shock. That it’s like ‘What do you mean, we do nothing? I mean, we need to do something. ‘”
Chuck Hagel, a former Republican senator who served as Secretary of Defense under President Barack Obama, said the situation was unusual.
“In all my years of dealing with national security and intelligence and foreign policy, I have never heard former military leaders express a president’s decision – making,” Hagel said.
“When I was Secretary of Defense my colleague from the Pentagon and I always knew that President Obama had studied the issues, he was well informed and wanted our opinions and recommendations. He listened to those accused of national security experience,” he added. .
“The president’s foreign policy – particularly in the Middle East, is defined by taking strong action as necessary (see strikes in Syria in 2018), de-scaled to prevent prolonged conflicts (pursuing in Afghanistan, taking a less response to Iran.) Make no mistake, however – the president will take decisive action if he guarantees to protect American interests, “the White House official said.
‘It was not a ploy’
Trump’s unpredictability is something that permeates official US interactions with the leaders of countries around the world – from Iran to Syria to North Korea to Canada and Mexico to NATO allies.
“The overall concept was discussed, not as a strategy that we consciously adopted, but rather as something that we refer to as factual,” Mulroy said. “The thing is, it was not a ploy,” he explained. “I think both allies and enemies realized that his decision-making process was unpredictable, even for those who advise him up to and including the Secretary of Defense and National Security Adviser.”
Capriciousness of Trump made the advisers responsible for just about every corner of the globe.
“I have had many meetings where my colleagues ask, ‘Can we really believe what you are saying? Who are you speaking to?'” Said Fiona Hill, the former former president of President Trump for European and Russian affairs. at the National Security Council and key witness during the president’s impeachment investigation in November 2019. “This makes the US a fickle partner for anyone who interacts with us as a collective.”
Trump’s unpredictability was no national secret. U.S. opponents were well aware that his own advisers and the institutions and bodies they lead were often in the dark about the president’s intentions and therefore sought to take advantage, said Susan Gordon, who served as the second- highest ranking in the United States as Chief Deputy Director of National Intelligence.
“Our partners, opponents and competitors know we do not know the next play,” Gordon said.
With any other president or any other administration, such deliberate unpredictability could be seen as a mistake, and identify it as a criticism. But in the opinion of Trump and his most devout supporters, his unpredictability is a powerful bargaining chip to praise.
“For him, unpredictability is a card he liked,” Yun said.
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