A New US National Security Team Confronts Difficult Choices with Iran and North Korea Sha'ban, 1439 - May 2018

36 Dirasat

Author: Dr. Jack Caravelli Co-Author: Sebastian Maier

A New US National Security Team Confronts Difficult Choices with Iran and North Korea

Author: Dr. Jack Caravelli Co-Author: Sebastian Maier 4 Dirasat No. 36 Sha'ban, 1439 - May 2018

Caravelli, Jack A New US national security team confronts difficult choices with Iran and North Korea. / Jack Caravelli ; Sebastian Maier. - Riyadh, 2018

30 p ; 16.5 x 23 cm

ISBN: 978-603-8206-68-3

1 - National security - United States 2- United States - Foreign relations - Iran I-Sebastian Maier (co. Author) II - Title 355.033073 dc 1439/8184

L.D. no. 1439/8184 ISBN: 978-603-8206-68-3 Table of Contents

Abstract 6

Introduction 7

North Korea and Iran—Strange Bedfellows 7

Trump Inherits Dangers in the Middle East and Asia 9

After the Reshuffling—Trump Assembles a New National Security Team 19

Options for Dealing with Iran 23 Implications for North Korea 26

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Abstract US President Donald Trump came to office having inherited a pair of seemingly intractable problems in regard to Iran and North Korea. Events over the past several years are forcing the Trump administration to simultaneously confront these two major political problems with nuclear weapons issues at their core. Iran maintains nuclear weapons options resulting from the flawed 2015 multilateral nuclear deal. In Asia, the unexpected and rapid progress of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’s (DPRK’s) nuclear weapons and long-range missile capabilities, as well as the challenge of navigating Kim Jong-un’s latest diplomatic moves, demand equally momentous decisions from the administration. This paper addresses the issues and choices available to the Trump administration in responding to the nuclear ambitions of Iran and further contextualizes the recent developments surrounding American nuclear diplomacy vis-à-vis North Korea. Introduction Events over the past several years are forcing the Trump administration to simultaneously confront two major political problems with nuclear weapons issues at their core. Iran maintains nuclear weapons options resulting from the flawed 2015 multilateral nuclear deal, and on May 8, 2018, President Trump announced he was ending US support for the deal and imposing new sanctions on Iran, setting in motion a flurry of diplomatic activity in Europe and the Middle East. In Asia, the unexpected and rapid progress of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’s (DPRK’s) nuclear weapons and long-range missile capabilities, as well as the challenge of navigating supreme leader Kim Jong-un’s latest diplomatic moves, demand equally momentous decisions from the administration. Its approach has been to pursue negotiations aimed at ending North Korea’s nuclear ambitions. A bilateral summit is scheduled to begin on June 12 in Singapore. There are unique elements and capabilities in Iran and North Korea’s respective programs—the DPRK’s nuclear weapons capability is more advanced than Iran’s, for example—but at the same time, it is certain that both nations will be watching how President Trump and his new national security team deal with the other to identify signs of weakness and areas of possible exploitation.

North Korea and Iran—Strange Bedfellows While Iran’s military posture and North Korea’s nuclear capabilities are embedded in two separate regional settings, over the years, the operational alliance between the two countries has become more intricately intertwined. Iran and North Korea, of course, both have struggling, but very different, economies and political goals. Some have seen this as suggesting their bilateral relationship is little more than one of pragmatic convenience. Events suggest otherwise. During the August 2017 inauguration of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to a second term, the North Korean delegation was

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headed by Kim Yong-nam, North Korea’s head of parliament and arguably one of the most powerful man in the country, albeit a distant second to Kim Jong-un. Nam reportedly had a lengthy, personal meeting with Rouhani as well as with Ali Larijani, Speaker of the Parliament of Iran, according to Iran’s IRNA news agency. Nam also remained in the country for 10 days, reportedly to sign a series of technical agreements although few details have been revealed.1 In the aftermath of the 1979 Iranian Revolution and the ensuing Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s, North Korea has been an indispensable partner in supporting Iran’s military objectives. During that period, North Korea was a critical conduit via which Iran could receive large amounts of military equipment, including the Scud B ballistic missiles that it used in its war with Iraq. Each side benefited; Iran had cash and oil—both badly needed by North Korea— and Pyongyang had sophisticated military hardware that helped Iran increase its regional assertiveness. In the 1990s, both countries created “friendship farms” for cultural and diplomatic exchanges, and in the large Iranian embassy compound in Pyongyang there stands a mosque, one of only a handful of houses of worship in the entire country. These symbolic gestures mask a much deeper, and dangerous, relationship. Iran deploys by far the largest ballistic missile force in the Middle East, but it remains dependent on outside assistance, beginning with the expertise North Korea has acquired over decades of scientific effort and in the past has shared, involving critical research and missile development and production. 2 It is well documented that for decades North Korea and Iran have carried out extensive scientific and technical exchanges. One result has

(1) Jeff Daniels, “North Korea’s ‘No. 2’ Official Strengthens Ties with Iran as UN hits Pyongyang with New Sanctions,” CNBC, August 4, 2017, https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/04/north-korea- officials-visit-to-iran-could-signal-wider-military-ties.html. (2) Samuel Ramani, “A Closer Look at Iran and North Korea’s Missile Cooperation,” The Diplomat, May 13, 2017, https://thediplomat.com/2017/05/a-closer-look-at-iran-and-north- koreas-missile-cooperation/. been the Iran’s deployment of the Shahab series of long-range missiles, which are derived from the North Korean–designed No Dong missiles.3

Trump Inherits Dangers in the Middle East and Asia Donald Trump came to office having inherited a pair of seemingly intractable problems in regard to Iran and North Korea. The two countries’ peculiar historic relationship only adds to the complexity of the situation. In Iran, the multilateral signing of the July 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)4 was touted by the Barack Obama administration as a major breakthrough that would not only mitigate much of the threat from Iran’s nuclear program5 but also induce that nation to engage in more moderate behavior in the Middle East and beyond. The other signatories to the agreement—the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Russia, and China— were eager to follow Obama’s lead and set aside an issue that had undermined Middle East stability for several decades. Obama’s unrealistic hopes, which almost certainly were driven by political considerations involving the benefits of scoring a major foreign policy success before he left office, were dashed quickly.6 Albeit grudgingly and to keep once frozen financial assets flowing to the regime as part of the JCPOA agreement, Iran has complied with its obligations under the JCPOA according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the nuclear watchdog of the United Nations. That judgment is debatable given that Iran continues to limit the IAEA’s access to military sites where critical nuclear weapons–related activity is

(3) “North Korea’s Proliferation of Missiles,” in Bruce E. Bechtol Jr., Red Rogue: The Persistent Challenge of North Korea (Washington, DC: Potomac Books, 2007), 68–70. (4) For a recent comprehensive assessment on the JCPOA and American strategic options, see Anthony H. Cordesman, “U.S. Strategy, the JCPOA Iranian Nuclear Arms Agreement, and the Gulf: Playing the Long Game,” Center for Strategic & International Studies Report, March 28, 2018. (5) A meticulously researched analysis on the evolution of Iran’s nuclear ambitions is provided in David Patrikarakos’ Nuclear Iran: The Birth of an Atomic State,(London: I.B. Tauris, 2012). (6) One of the most authoritative overviews of US policy on Iran’s nuclear program during the Obama administration is contained in David E. Sanger’s Confront and Conceal (New York: Crown Publishers, 2013).

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likely to have taken place. At the same time, and setting aside whether Iran has upheld its commitments or not, there are ample reasons to conclude that the JCPOA is fundamentally flawed. For example, the deal does not address or place any restrictions on Iran’s missile program, which has been operating for decades, benefiting in significant areas such as guidance and propulsion from Russian and North Korean assistance. This is a major failing of the JCPOA and largely attributable to former secretary of state John Kerry and his negotiating team, who failed to push hard enough on the issue. This is a critical shortfall because every current nuclear weapons state has developed the capability to deliver nuclear weapons to distant targets, primarily by ballistic missiles. While there is a set of existing UN Security Council sanctions on the Iranian missile program, they are due to be lifted in about six years. Iran continues to follow an aggressive path of missile development despite UN Security Council Resolution 2231, which explicitly calls for it to cease work on ballistic missile development. Those missiles are not accurate enough to use with conventional warheads except perhaps as weapons of terror. If Iran does not intend to develop nuclear weapons, it should have no need for a long-range missile capability, yet it continues to commit major resources to its missile program. Nations effectively vote with their resources, and the priority Iran accords to a long-range missile capability is undeniable and serves as a reminder of likely future nuclear ambitions. The 2015 agreement also leaves in place much of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, which is the product of decades of development. 7 Under the agreement, Iran will shutter or reconfigure facilities, such as the Arak heavy

(7) Since the mid-1990s, the US government had been monitoring developments in Iran’s nuclear program with growing alarm. The result was the beginning of a diplomatic effort led by a senior US ambassador and a National Security Council official (Caravelli) to negotiate possible measures to mitigate the problem. See “The Long Shadow of Stuxnet,” in Jack Caravelli and Sebastian Maier, “Deciphering Iran’s Cyber Activities,” Dirasat, King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies, December 2016, 10. water facility, that would directly support the production of plutonium, which serves as a path to nuclear weapons. That is a positive development, but it is far from an assurance that Iran cannot acquire fissile material as it can pursue the other path to a nuclear weapon, the enrichment to weapons-grade uranium. A related issue involves a series of sunset clauses in the nuclear deal that will take effect over the next 8 to 12 years and will enable Iran to resume much of its uranium enrichment activity. Moreover, Iran is not prohibited from engaging in research and development efforts involving uranium enrichment. Through years of effort, Iran has acquired extensive experience in enriching uranium and, over the next few years, will be able to design and ultimately deploy, if it chooses, new generations of more reliable and efficient centrifuges, the complex machines that enrich uranium. With enriched uranium and an advancing missile program, Iran will be poised to complete a nuclear weapons system capable of striking targets throughout the Middle East and beyond. Under that scenario, the Middle East would be badly destabilized in ways heretofore unseen.8 Trump’s decision is bold in that it confronts the problems with the JCPOA now, not years down the road. Significant questions about Iran’s activities at military sites remain unanswered. One of the most notable such sites is located at Parchin, about 30 kilometers southeast of Tehran, where Iran may have carried out wind tunnel tests related to the development of a nuclear warhead. Iran was pressed repeatedly on this issue for years prior to the JCPOA agreement by inspectors from the IAEA but never gave a satisfactory explanation of the events there. This pattern of obfuscation has remained since the JCPOA was reached and is reflected in activities Iran has carried out over the past several years at Parchin, where it literally bulldozed buildings of particular concern and

(8) See: Jack Caravelli and Jordan Foresi, The Age of Hatred: ISIS, Iran and the New Middle East (Post Falls, ID: Mediatrix Press, 2016).

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paved them over. Since then, Iran continues to practice a policy of providing the international community with only the information that is absolutely required to keep the JCPOA alive. Iran has made it clear that it does not want IAEA inspectors at its military sites and instead has offered to have Iranian technicians collect any materials that might indicate past illicit activities there.9 This is hardly a credible approach to resolving a significant security issue. The nuclear deal also did nothing to moderate Iran’s regional behavior, which Obama had asserted would be one of the deal’s most valuable results. According to the US State Department,10 Iran remains the leading state sponsor of terror, notably through Tehran’s proxy forces, such as its major Lebanese ally, Hezbollah, and the Houthi rebels in Yemen. Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, whose regime has killed over 450,000 of its citizens in what has become a seemingly interminable civil war, benefits enormously, not just from Russian support, but also from political and military support from Iran. Iran’s Quds Force, for example, works closely with the Syrian Army in developing combat tactics and carrying out attacks against foes of the Assad regime. Assad’s survival in office through years of conflict owes much to Iran and Russia. In terms of capabilities, Iran also draws from an increasingly dangerous mix of conventional military capabilities. These include long-range anti-ship missiles and asymmetric naval-missile-air forces that are designed to imperil shipping, energy infrastructure and naval traffic in the Gulf as well as Indian Ocean and Red Sea. Iran’s foreign adventures impose a considerable financial price on the regime; funding them strains its fragile economy and also has provoked

(9) Yonah Alexander and Milton M. Hoenig, The New Iranian Leadership (London: Praeger Security International, 2008), 157. (10) “Iranian state sponsorship of terrorism on a global scale remained undiminished through the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force, its Ministry of Intelligence and Security, and Tehran’s ally Hizballah, which remained a significant threat to the stability of Lebanon and the broader region.” See U.S. Department of State, Country Reports on Terrorism 2016, Chapter 3, “State Sponsors of Terrorism, Iran,” https://www.state.gov/j/ct/rls/crt/2016/272235.htm. widespread domestic unrest and protests against the regime, beginning in late December 2017 and continuing into 2018. Nonetheless, and while still engaged in Syria, Iran also has provided the resources to support elements in Yemen that continue to undermine Saudi security and are contributing to another humanitarian crisis in the region. While the DPRK does not pose the same broad political challenges to the United States in Asia as Iran does in the Middle East, the DPRK’s nuclear ambitions are more immediate11 and its threatening language even more obvious. The war on the Korean Peninsula in the 1950s never ended legally, but rather concluded with an armistice that divided the two Koreas at the 38th parallel. Relations between the United States and North Korea never really improved after the war but rather worsened through the years. Years of on-and- off diplomatic effort have been unsuccessful. In its relations with the DPRK, since as far back as the Bill Clinton administration, the United States has been trying to deal with a hostile regime that has sought to separate it from its close ally, South Korea, while it poured its precious resources into developing a nuclear weapons capability. Once a member of the Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), which it later renounced in January 2003,12 in the early years North Korea sought to advance its nuclear and missile programs with extensive external assistance from Russian and Chinese experts. That cooperation paid handsome dividends for the DPRK, and it is now much less reliant on external assistance than in the past. These activities were watched closely by US intelligence organizations. As a result, the North Koreans also used diplomacy to forestall US actions to disrupt their programs, beginning with agreeing to, and then some years

(11) See David Albright, “52 Countries Involved in Violating UNSC Resolutions on North Korea throughout Most of 2017,” Institute for Science and International Security Report, March 9, 2018, http://isis-online.org/uploads/isis-reports/documents/52_Countries_Involved_in_ Violating_NK_UNSC_Resolutions_in_2017_9Mar2018_Final_%281%29.pdf. (12) Frederic L. Kirgis, “North Korea’s Withdrawal from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty,” Insights, vol. 9, no. 2 (January 24, 2003).

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later reneging on, a 1994 commitment to the Clinton administration to limit its nuclear and missile programs in exchange for substantial financial and energy assistance. At times, North Korean progress on its military programs has been slow, but in late October 2006, it conducted its first successful nuclear weapons test, and over the past 18 months there has been a series of dramatic breakthroughs that have increased the level of danger on the Korean Peninsula. One of the most important has been North Korea’s demonstrated mastery of the fundamentals of long-range missile technology.13 By early 2018 it appears to have achieved a capability to hit targets throughout the United States, although doubts still linger about the reliability and accuracy of those missiles. On a parallel path, it has now conducted a series of nuclear weapons tests demonstrating both the reliability of those weapons and increased destructive power or yield, and has claimed that it has achieved a thermonuclear weapons capability, which, if true, would represent an order of magnitude increase in the destructive power of its previously tested nuclear weapons. North Korea’s various claims for these programs may be exaggerated, and while progress in both missiles and weapons technology is evident, the remaining challenge seems to be—again, in the absence of clear evidence— designing a warhead for its missiles. This is a process that requires considerable engineering and science capability, some of which may have been gleaned over the years from Russia and China. Against this backdrop of accelerated progress in its programs, North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un has taken to regularly engaging in taunts and bombast against the United States. He repeatedly threatens the United States with destruction while also seeking to separate it, not only from its South Korean ally, but also from Japan, another staunch US ally in the Pacific.

(13) Bechtol, Red Rogue, 65. However, events took an unexpected turn in late February 2018. At that time the Winter Olympics, hosted by the South Koreans, was coming to an end. North Korea participated in the games without major incident, and as the games were ending, a South Korean spokesperson announced authorization by senior North Korean officials to signal Pyongyang’s willingness to hold talks with the United States on denuclearization. North Korea also reportedly said it would refrain from engaging in a new round of nuclear weapons tests. The North Korean message included a call for the United States to end the military threats and make security guarantees. These were broad statements that added few details about how such agreements, were they to be reached, would be monitored. President Trump reacted positively and quickly to the North Korean overture, saying he would agree to the proposed talks, while a statement from a White House spokesperson said a new round of talks held hopes for a “brighter path.”14 At the same time, the White House said it would maintain maximum pressure on North Korea, including continued support of UN Security Council sanctions that were placing significant financial pressures on North Korea. It was impossible to say at the time what led North Korea to suggest these talks, but it was likely the US threats of military action, reflected in Trump’s willingness to devastate North Korea with “fire and fury,”15 and the growing list of sanctions had combined to induce at least the appearance of North Korean moderation. Despite these positive signs, a sense of wariness was also expressed by many in the Trump administration. Why was North Korea apparently willing

(14) Statement by the Press Secretary on Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, The White House Statements & Releases, February 25,2018, https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings- statements/statement-press-secretary-denuclearization-korean-peninsula/. (15) Jacob Pramuk, “Trump Warns North Korea Threats ‘Will Be Met with Fire and Fury,’” CNBC, August 8 2017, https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/08/trump-warns-north-korea-threats-will-be- met-with-fire-and-fury.html; Ashish Kumar Sen, “Trump and North Korea: From ‘Fire and Fury’ to Diplomacy,” Atlantic Council, March 9, 2018, http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ new-atlanticist/trump-and-north-korea-from-fire-and-fury-to-diplomacy.

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to hold talks? Was the offer genuine? What were the North Koreans willing to give up and what would they expect in return? Was Kim confident or desperate? Were Kim and his government seeking to merely buy time in hopes of having the sanctions lifted? Was the North Korean economy, which was one of the poorest in the world, teetering on the verge of collapse? Was China, which was the source of North Korea’s main financial support, pressuring Pyongyang to take steps to reduce tensions with the United States, given President Trump’s possible willingness to launch a preemptive strike on North Korea, an event that could result in millions of North Koreans fleeing to China? Authoritative answers to these questions were unknown, but Washington had ample cause for skepticism. North Korea had shown itself in past negotiations to be either unable or unwilling to make significant agreements or carry them out, as was the case in the 1994 Framework Agreement with the United States. For Trump, who had campaigned on the claim that his predecessor, Obama, had been a poor negotiator who compromised and failed to defend US interests, the possibility of being duped by the North Koreans posed a special risk. In early April North Korea confirmed directly to the White House that it was indeed prepared to hold talks on denuclearization with the United States. Their commitment to the meeting marked the first time since the original South Korean announcement reporting the North’s willingness to hold talks that a North Korean official had affirmed. The Americans interpreted the announcement as a positive sign which added a greater sense of urgency in Washington to preparations for the meeting. Within the White House National Security Council, Department of Defense, CIA and State Department, preparations were underway to provide support and input to the president. The administration has not indicated details of its goals for the talks beyond seeking to mitigate or, ideally, end, the North Korean nuclear threat. For example, the difficult but critical task of monitoring any agreement remains to be addressed within the administration before any talks can be held with the North Koreans. Many details still needed to be sorted out, although former CIA director and now secretary of state Mike Pompeo and a team of aides have reportedly started preparing the groundwork for the historic meeting through intelligence back-channels.16 On Wednesday, May 9, Pompeo made a second surprise visit to North Korea to continue to prepare the ground for what would be a historic meeting between the two countries’ leaders in June. The American secretary of state returned to the United States alongside three U.S. citizens who had been imprisoned for over a year. There also was a flurry of other diplomatic activity that was unfolding. In early April, Kim traveled by train to Beijing to consult with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Few details emerged from those talks. That meeting was to be followed by another Kim meeting, this time with South Korean President Moon Jae-in. On April 18, Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe met with President Trump at his Florida compound, Mar-a-Largo. While the prospect of talks between the United States and North Korea may be a welcoming development after years of diplomatic stagnation and saber rattling, the issue of denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula is by no means only a bilateral affair. Kim’s surprise two-day visit in March 2018 to Beijing to meet with president Xi Jinping of China caught the international community off guard. It is a stark reminder of the regional balance of power, in which the People’s Republic of China (PRC) remains North Korea’s most potent ally and has now been given significant leverage in the prospective upcoming meetings between Kim and president Moon Jae-in of South Korea in April and between Kim and President Trump, in June.

(16) Kevin Liptak and Jeremy Diamond, “Surprise Meetings and Potential Pitfalls: Trump Preps for North Korea,” CNN, March 29, 2018, https://edition.cnn.com/2018/03/28/politics/donald- trump-north-korea-preparations/index.html.

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Understandably, from the Chinese perspective, the likelihood of possibly being diplomatically sidelined by North Korea and the United States without prior consultation between Pyongyang and Beijing would have left China without much say when it came to negotiating realistic political mechanisms that aim at moving forward a diplomatic détente and the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. Conversely, Kim’s unannounced visit, which was his first meeting with any country leader on foreign soil since taking power in 2011, remains a strong signal underscoring the unwavering economic realities and dependencies as they have been historically enshrined in the Sino–North Korean axis.17 However, reassurance from China that it supports Kim not only strengthens his posture in the international arena, it also strengthens it particularly vis-à-vis the South Korean and American leaders. Streamlined Chinese–North Korean demands could potentially set the bar too high for American acquiescence, ultimately rendering a diplomatic breakthrough a nonstarter in the first place. This holds particularly true for the alleged desire of China and North Korea to get the United States to agree to withdraw some or all of its 27,000 troops from Japan and South Korea, a cornerstone alliance commitment that President Trump cannot compromise without risking a perilous undermining of the existing balance of power in the region. One of Kim’s official remarks during his visit to China may have provided a glimpse of how the United States should prepare in order to maximize its success in any direct engagement with North Korea. In Kim’s words, “South Korea and the United States [shall] respond with good will to our efforts ... and take phased, synchronized measures to achieve peace.”18 Just as much as Kim

(17) The Soufan Group, “IntelBrief: The Special Relationship between China and North Korea,” March 30, 2018, http://www.soufangroup.com/intelbrief-the-special-relationship-between- china-and-north-korea/. (18) Steven Lee Myers and Jane Perlez, “Kim Jong-un Met with Xi Jinping in Secret Beijing Visit,” New York Times, March 27, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/27/world/asia/kim-jong- un-china-north-korea.html. cannot operate alone, without the support of the PRC, the United States has an interest in acknowledging, coordinating, and incorporating both the roles of Tokyo, and above all, Seoul.19 In recent months, South Korea’s President Moon has doubled down on his endorsement of the prospect of a regional thaw by sending high-level delegations to both China and Japan. In addition, it became apparent that Washington was eager to learn the views of leaders in Seoul and Tokyo before entering the bilateral talks.

After the Reshuffling: Trump Assembles a New National Security Team Trump will approach these issues aided by a new security policy team that he began to put in place in spring 2018. Trump, a life-long businessman, did not come to the presidency with extensive political or foreign policy experience, and said he used his “instincts” to label the Iran nuclear accord “the worst deal ever.”20 On May 8 he exited this international agreement on the Iranian nuclear program, triggering the rekindled imposition of sanctions against Iran. At the same time, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has issued numerous provocative and threatening statements against the United States while the DPRK military was carrying out a series of incendiary actions, including the testing of advanced, long-range missiles capable of hitting US targets and a new series of nuclear weapons. In the face of these threats, Trump’s former national security team, which was composed of Rex Tillerson, also a business executive, who became

(19) “South Korea’s only viable strategic option for the foreseeable future is continued cultivation and strengthening of the alliance with the United States.” See Scott A. Snyder, South Korea at the Crossroads—Autonomy and Alliance in an Era of Rival Powers (New York: Columbia University Press, 2018), 19–21. (20) “Why Donald Trump Is Unlikely to Start a Catastrophic Conflict,” The Economist, March 31– April 6, 2018, 32, https://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21739772-war-games-why- donald-trump-unlikely-start-catastrophic-conflict; Jackson Diehl, “The Nuclear Agreement Is ‘the Worst Deal Ever’—for Iran,” Washington Post, Opinions, February 18, 2018, https://www. washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/the-nuclear-agreement-is-the-worst-deal-ever--for- iran/2018/02/18/b9849abe-1267-11e8-8ea1-c1d91fcec3fe_story.html?utm_term=.f6699f67f8c2.

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secretary of state, and army general H. R. McMaster, who became national security adviser, urged caution. They were supported in their recommendations by secretary of defense James Mattis, a former senior military officer. Relationships are important, and Trump clearly seeks to have people around him whom he trusts and has confidence in. Both Tillerson and McMaster are men of considerable accomplishments, but neither of them, by all reporting, ever established a good rapport with the president or inspired his confidence. Various media reports claim they often frustrated the president by offering him cautious advice that he never fully embraced, beginning with advocacy of a moderate and patient approach to recertifying the Iran deal, as US law requires the president to rule on it every 120 days, and urging that the United States refrain from military action against North Korea. Mattis said a war with North Korea would be “catastrophic.”21 From numerous tweets sent by President Trump, his favored way of communicating on numerous issues, it was clear he was searching for a more muscular response. Perhaps the most telling shortfalls of Tillerson’s and McMaster’s service to the president can be seen in what they failed to offer. There is little evidence either man sought to develop bold or creative approaches to events in the Middle East or beyond. For example, there was little discussion of ways to employ America’s considerable financial might to undermine Iran or the development of red lines to indicate the point at which the United States, for example, would take action against Iranian construction of new military bases or missile production facilities. This is not to say Trump would have chosen these or similar policy options; direct challenges to Iran bring many consequences in the Middle East and beyond. Nonetheless, such choices never

(21) Dakshayani Shankar, “Mattis: War with North Korea Would Be ‘Catastrophic,’“ ABCNews, August 10, 2017, http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/mattis-war-north-korea-catastrophic/story?id =49146747. were proffered to the president for his consideration, which was a serious lapse by his former senior aides. March 2018 turned out to be a critical month for Trump for assembling a new foreign policy team. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director Mike Pompeo, was asked to replace Tillerson at the State Department. Pompeo, a former conservative congressman, shares many of Trump’s concerns about Iran and the nuclear deal. Trump took further personnel action just a few weeks later, naming John Bolton, a highly experienced former Department of State official and US ambassador to the United Nations, to replace McMaster as national security adviser. Because Bolton will serve on the White House staff, he is not subject to Senate confirmation, as is the case for other political appointments such as cabinet members. Bolton is very well informed on the most important Iran and North Korea issues because of his previous governmental assignments. Through numerous writings and speeches, Bolton long has been an outspoken critic of the JCPOA, and he is deeply skeptical of the value of past efforts to negotiate with North Korea.22 Service in various past Republican administrations going back to Ronald Reagan’s presidency also has given Bolton a deep understanding of how bureaucracies function in Washington. The combination of deep substantive knowledge and bureaucratic savvy will make him a formidable senior official in carrying out his duties for Trump. In Pompeo and Bolton, the president has assembled a team that shares his concerns about the nuclear problems posed by Iran and North Korea. Their collective challenge will be to develop policy options that

(22) Michael Birnbaum, Anna Fifield, and Loveday Morris, “The Return of John Bolton, a Hawk on North Korea and Iran, Sparks Concerns around the World,” Washington Post, March 23, 2018, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/south-korea-worries-about-the-return-of-john- bolton-and-his-hawkish-views/2018/03/23/4adc68aa-2e6c-11e8-911f-ca7f68bff0fc_story. html?utm_term=.5576b59358aa.

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can resolve those problems and, ideally, in a way that does not trigger a regional war or foster even greater instability. Based on his numerous public pronouncements, including the oft-stated belief that the United States should seek to change the Iranian regime, Bolton may become an advocate for the type of sweeping options previously absent from past presidential options. This is not to say Pompeo or Bolton will always agree with the president, who bears the ultimate responsibility for the direction and choices of US policy. Far more than Pompeo or Bolton, or any of his senior aides, the president has to account to the American public for the domestic and international consequences of those choices. At the same time, Pompeo and Bolton also will have to contend with the views of Secretary Mattis, who appears determined to remain at his post in the Pentagon, and who has been recommending caution in dealing with both Iran and North Korea ever since coming into office. Trump and his team also will be under time pressures. Taking on two major diplomatic issues fraught with such complexity and controversy is highly demanding. Fortunately for Trump, Pompeo received Senate confirmation at the end of April in a relatively speedy and less lengthy manner as pundits had previously suggested. In the case of Bolton, the new national security adviser, he had relatively little time on the job and in mid-May was still in the process of forming the cadre of advisers he will want around him for the months to come. With the announcement of the US–North Korean Summit to be held in Singapore on June 12, and with Trump having pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal, it becomes clear that both Pompeo and Bolton are part of Trump’s efforts to significantly alter the regional security architecture in both the Middle East and East Asia. Both professionals will likely continue to be challenged by the potentially wide-ranging ramifications carried by both major policy decisions alike. Options for Dealing with Iran With these factors in mind, we can turn to Trump’s options regarding Iran. With Trump’s May 8 decision on reenacting sanctions on Iran, he scrapped what would have been continued financial relief, from the international negotiating partners as well as the United States, if he had chosen to recertify Iran as being in compliance with its JCPOA obligations. Unsurprisingly, that ended up being the most likely course of action, given Trump’s numerous comments on the deal and the composition of the new national security team, which shares his loathing of how the JCPOA was negotiated. A major break with US policy, including Trump’s previous, albeit reluctant, past certifications of Iran’s compliance with the agreement, was far from simple, but in the end, it was exactly what Trump wanted. In the grand scheme of things, pulling out of the Iran nuclear accord was consistent with Trump’s domestic and foreign policy style, which at times has been to decide first and deal with the consequences later. Ending US support for the JCPOA was indeed a momentous decision, in no small measure because the United States rarely ends support for any type of security deal. In doing so it triggered a series of events involving the parties with various interests in what would come next, ranging from the Europeans to Russia and China, friends and allies of the United States in the Middle East, and of course the Iranians. The unilateral American move away from the JCPOA may well trigger the death knell of the deal because it provides Iran with a pretext to end its commitment to it and to resume uranium enrichment, a threat that was voiced by Iranian president Hasan Rouhani right after Trump’s decision. The Europeans and President Rouhani claim they will stick to the deal, but already a multibillion-dollar set of agreements by which Boeing and Airbus would sell aircraft to support Iran’s struggling aviation industry were in direct jeopardy of falling apart. Part of the reason was European fear of “secondary sanctions,” by which

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the US government would punish not only Iran but also those seeking to do business with Iran. With the Trump administration having scrapped the JCPOA, it will quickly confront the complexity of the aftereffects. The JCPOA is a multilateral deal, and none of the other nations that are part of it—the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Russia, and China—have any interest in seeing the United States end its participation. The Europeans lobbied Trump hard to continue supporting the deal. The Western nations recognize the imperfections in the nuclear agreement but have other pressing problems. The Europeans also are wary of Trump for many reasons, including his perceived unpredictability. The Russians and the Chinese have become increasing hostile to US policy goals in the Middle East and also would do little to help Trump resolve the issue by agreeing, for example, to support new negotiations to address US concerns about Iran’s missile program or regional encroachment. Nations that eschew nuclear weapons have no requirement for long-range missiles. Similar concerns revolve around the sunset clauses, which Trump would like to see removed entirely. Russia in particular is likely to be quietly pleased by any actions that cause friction between the United States and its friends and allies. Russia sees Iran as a convenient and so far reliable partner that helps expanding Moscow’s own strategic foothold in the Middle East and South Asia, where Russia competes with the United States. For their part, the Iranians also will show little flexibility or interest in revising the deal, in part as a matter of pride to demonstrate they cannot be bullied by the Americans. Simply put, they also have little incentive on financial or strategic terms to revise a deal that benefits them in many ways. Iran remains hostile to the United States as well as to US allies in the region, including Saudi Arabia. Iran is the beneficiary of billions of dollars in assets that were unfrozen as part of the nuclear deal; the impending threat of new sanctions will likely put that all at risk. Iranian public statements have underscored Tehran’s claim that a US decision to impose new sanctions would result in Iran ending its commitment to the JCPOA. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, already a virulent critic of the Trump administration, may well feel compelled to declare the deal null and void, especially if he believes Iran’s financial lifelines are being threatened by new sanctions. This could result in Iran to quickly resume its uranium enrichment program and deny IAEA inspectors future access to Iranian sites. Iran also might return completely to an often unrecognized danger of proliferation, its use of illicit procurement channels.23 The JCPOA established an authorized procurement channel in hopes of regulating the Iranian acquisition of goods and services from overseas sources, including those dual- use applications. China has been bypassing that mechanism, but the end of the nuclear deal could result in increased Iranian use of procurement channels outside the reach of JCPOA mechanisms. Behind closed doors at a late-March gathering in Vienna of the nations that were party to the nuclear deal, there was a drumbeat of condemnation of the Trump administration’s at the time pending rejection of the deal, although the US president’s hope was that by the May deadline, a set of actions that, he felt, should be initiated by the Europeans, would have preserved the JCPOA while addressing its shortfalls. These factors are both complicating and troubling, but this is not to imply Trump should refrain from the actions that would bring to a head with Iran the nuclear issue. Rather, it suggests the president would be well advised to have in place the responses and policies that will be needed should some of the negative consequences described earlier begin to unfold.

(23) Gordon Carrera’s Shopping for Bombs: Nuclear Proliferation, Global Insecurity and the Rise and Fall of the A.Q. Khan Network speaks to the North Korea–Iran cooperation in a historical context (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006).

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Trump’s decision on May 8, is a potential new beginning, not the last word, on this most complex of policy questions. For example, the now- taken US decision to end its formal acceptance of the JCPOA will bring the international community into unchartered territory. Trump’s team had only limited time to prepare for that possibility. The development of an alternate plan would be most effective if it included declared US support for its friends and allies in the Middle East and beyond as well as consultations with these nations to ensure that any hostile action by Iran is prepared for and, if necessary, countered.

Implications for North Korea All this will be followed shortly thereafter by US talks with the DPRK. No timetable has been established for the talks beyond the initial round on 12 June, and North Korean officials have said little about its proposed timelines or objectives beyond the most obvious points. If they occur at all, it is almost certain the talks now definitely will follow Trump’s decision on Iran. For this reason, it is certain the North Koreans will be tracking closely US actions and decisions. What is much less certain is what lessons the North Korean leadership will draw from Trump’s choices on Iran. Can voiding the Iran deal be considered a political earthquake for North Korea’s unpredictable leader, who may become more inclined to believe that the Trump administration is prepared to use force if North Korea fails to offer significant concessions to placate the United States? Alternatively, would Kim Jong-un conclude that with Trump taking the United States out of the Iran deal, he will also fail to honor whatever deal he may reach with North Korea? What views would South Korea, Japan, and China, the most important regional actors in Asia that are affected by North Korea’s belligerency, conclude from the US decision to decertify the Iran deal as it prepared to deal with North Korea? The Trump administration has decided to embark on a set of issues fraught with both opportunity and risk. Skillful diplomacy will be at a premium, requiring not only the president’s focused engagement but that of his new national security team as well.

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About the Authors

Dr. Jack Caravelli was principal adviser on the National Security Council Staff to president Bill Clinton from 1996 to 2000 on Russia and Middle East nonproliferation issues. His extensive career in government service includes analytic, staff, and managerial positions at the Central Intelligence Agency, the aforementioned position with the White House National Security Council Staff, and the Department of Energy, where Caravelli directed the department’s international nuclear threat reduction programs. Since leaving government service, he has authored five books and speaks on various national security issues in the United States and abroad. In 2015, he chaired an international cyber conference in Lugano, Switzerland, and he chaired similar conferences in 2017 and 2018 at Christ Church, Oxford. Caravelli appears regularly on national television and radio programs. He serves currently as Chief US Executive and Partner at Cymatus LTD, an international technology company.

Sebastian Maier is Middle East Director for the London-based intelligence and political risk firm GMTL LLP. In 2015 and 2016, Maier worked as Resident Research Fellow at the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies, where he focused on politico-military trends in the Middle East, the Syrian conflict, and the involvement of Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah in the Levant. Prior to his work at the Center, he was a trainee at the Canadian embassy to Germany, as well as at the German-Saudi Liaison Office for Economic Affairs in Riyadh. Maier received a bachelor’s degree in Political Science and Law in 2013 from the University of Munich and SciencesPo Paris and earned his master’s degree in Intelligence and International Security in 2014 from the Department of War Studies at King’s College London.

King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies (KFCRIS)

The KFCRIS is an independent non-governmental institution based in Riyadh, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The Center was founded in 1403/1983 by the King Faisal Foundation (KFF) to preserve the legacy of the late King Faisal and to continue his mission of transmitting knowledge between the Kingdom and the world. The Center serves as a platform for research and Islamic Studies, bringing together researchers and research institutions from the Kingdom and across the world through conferences, workshops, and lectures, and through the production and publication of scholarly works, as well as the preservation of Islamic manuscripts. The Center’s Research Department is home to a group of established and promising researchers who endeavor to produce in-depth analyses in various fields, ranging from Contemporary Political Thought, Political Economy, and Arabic Language to Saudi Studies, Maghreb Studies, and Asian Studies. The Center also hosts the Library which preserves invaluable Islamic manuscripts, the Al-Faisal Museum for Arab Islamic Art, the Al-Faisal Institute for Human Resources Development, the Darat Al-Faisal, and the Al-Faisal Cultural Press, which issues the Al-Faisal magazine and other key intellectual periodicals. For more information, please visit the Center’s website: www.kfcris.com/en

P.O.Box 51049 Riyadh 11543 Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Tel: (+966 11) 4652255 Ext: 6892 Fax: (+966 11) 4659993 E-mail: [email protected]