Trump dismisses NYT report about his plan for war with Iran involving 120k troops: "I think it's fake news. OK? Now, would I do that? Absolutely. But we have not planned for that...if we did that we'd sent a hell of a lot more troops than that...the New York Times is fake news." pic.twitter.com/v7rEZwNCjK
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 14, 2019
This is a flashing siren from coalition military. They are not on same page with WH. https://t.co/heSYWTAqEw
— Juliette Kayyem (@juliettekayyem) May 14, 2019
U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo made scant progress persuading European Union counterparts to take a harder line toward Iran during a quick visit to Brussels, with the EU standing behind the nuclear accord abandoned by Washington -- and warning of a potential military conflict.
Pompeo presented what the U.S. says is fresh intelligence on the threat posed by Iran in meetings with counterparts from the three EU nations that joined the landmark 2015 accord that President Donald Trump abandoned a year ago. The top U.S. diplomat received a cool initial response to the surprise visit as foreign ministers from the 28-member bloc convened in the Belgian capital.
“I confirm my worry about the risks of an escalation in a region that definitely doesn’t need further elements of destabilization and tensions,” European Union foreign-policy chief Federica Mogherini told reporters after the meetings. “Our call is to show maximum restraint from all sides.”
As alarm in European capitals grows at Trump’s hard-line approach in the region, there was no appreciable movement in the talks with Pompeo. The U.S. stance has left European allies irritated at the lack of strategy and powerless to sway an American administration that’s failed to provide answers on where it all leads, according to diplomats in Berlin, Paris and London.
“We’ll see what happens with Iran. If they do anything it’ll be a very bad mistake,” Trump told reporters at the White House on Monday. “If they do anything they will suffer greatly."
The State Department’s top envoy for Iran, Brian Hook, described the visit as a “signals check” aimed at sharing intelligence with European allies and not a trip aimed at getting Europe to change its position.
“The secretary wanted to give people an update on the current threat streams that we have been analyzing and to stay in close sync with them,” Hook told reporters after the meetings on Monday. “The developments warrant sharing more information and this was a very good and convenient opportunity.”
Foremost among European concerns is the risk of a return to a nuclear threat in the Middle East, diplomats said on condition of anonymity as talks proceed behind closed doors. The Europeans are in a bind, with limited options to protect the deal.
Pompeo gave his European counterparts little time to prepare on Monday as ad-hoc meetings were scheduled individually. The other 25 member states were left out as Pompeo met with Mogherini, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt and France’s Jean-Yves Le Drian.
Looming over the shuttle diplomacy lies a sense that more than 15 years of heavy lifting that culminated in the nuclear deal is slipping away, according to senior European diplomats. And even if few expect an open conflict in the near term, the fear is that Trump’s unpredictable approach could have unintended consequences.
At a meeting of President Trump’s top national security aides last Thursday, Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan presented an updated military plan that envisions sending as many as 120,000 troops to the Middle East should Iran attack American forces or accelerate work on nuclear weapons, administration officials said.
The revisions were ordered by hard-liners led by John R. Bolton, Mr. Trump’s national security adviser. They do not call for a land invasion of Iran, which would require vastly more troops, officials said.
The development reflects the influence of Mr. Bolton, one of the administration’s most virulent Iran hawks, whose push for confrontation with Tehran was ignored more than a decade ago by President George W. Bush.
It is highly uncertain whether Mr. Trump, who has sought to disentangle the United States from Afghanistan and Syria, ultimately would send so many American forces back to the Middle East.
It is also unclear whether the president has been briefed on the number of troops or other details in the plans. On Monday, asked about if he was seeking regime change in Iran, Mr. Trump said: “We’ll see what happens with Iran. If they do anything, it would be a very bad mistake.”
There are sharp divisions in the administration over how to respond to Iran at a time when tensions are rising about Iran’s nuclear policy and its intentions in the Middle East.
Some senior American officials said the plans, even at a very preliminary stage, show how dangerous the threat from Iran has become. Others, who are urging a diplomatic resolution to the current tensions, said it amounts to a scare tactic to warn Iran against new aggressions.
European allies who met with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Monday said that they worry that tensions between Washington and Tehran could boil over, possibly inadvertently.
More than a half-dozen American national security officials who have been briefed on details of the updated plans agreed to discuss them with The New York Times on the condition of anonymity. Spokesmen for Mr. Shanahan and Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, declined to comment.
The size of the force involved has shocked some who have been briefed on them. The 120,000 troops would approach the size of the American force that invaded Iraq in 2003.
Deploying such a robust air, land and naval force would give Tehran more targets to strike, and potentially more reason to do so, risking entangling the United States in a drawn out conflict. It also would reverse years of retrenching by the American military in the Middle East that began with President Barack Obama’s withdrawal of troops from Iraq in 2011.
But two of the American national security officials said Mr. Trump’s announced drawdown in December of American forces in Syria, and the diminished naval presence in the region, appear to have emboldened some leaders in Tehran and convinced the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps that the United States has no appetite for a fight with Iran.