Fear: Trump in the White House

In a five-minute presentation, Tillerson read a prepared list of all the grievances against Iran: ballistic missile testing, “the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism,” threats to Israel, human rights violations, cyber attacks, arbitrary detention of foreigners including U.S. citizens, harassing U.S. Navy ships, jailing or executing political opponents, “reaching the agonizing low point of executing juveniles,” and support to the “brutal Assad regime in Syria.”

The Iran deal, Tillerson said, “fails to achieve the objective of a non-nuclear Iran. It only delays their goal of becoming a nuclear state.”

Obama had defined the deal as a “non-binding agreement” rather than a treaty which requires Senate ratification. “Perhaps,” Priebus said to Trump, “we can declare this a document that needs to be sent to the Senate for approval. Just take it out of our hands. Give it to the Senate and say, you pass it with two thirds and declare it a treaty.”

Trump seemed intrigued but soon understood he would be giving up authority by sending it to the Senate. He agreed that for the moment they were stuck with it. Only for the moment.

Priebus and Tillerson and McMaster made sure they were “calendaring”—as they say in the White House—when the next 90-day renewal would come up.

“They’re in violation,” Trump said in a meeting before the July 17 deadline, “and you need to figure out how the argument is going to be made to declare that.”

One day Tillerson came to the dining room next to the Oval Office to see Trump and Priebus and explain to the president again that there was no violation.

“They are in violation,” Trump insisted, “and you should make the case that this agreement is done and finished.” He suggested they might consider reopening the terms of the deal. “And that maybe we’d be willing to renegotiate.”

“Mr. President,” Tillerson said in exasperation, “you have the authority. You’re the president. You just tell me what you want me to do. You call the shots. I’ll do what you say.”

He was getting dangerously close to violating the protocols of dealing with a president.

CIA Director Pompeo did not disagree with Tillerson’s arguments on Iran and the reality of the Iran deal, but he, like Mattis, handled it more softly with the president. “Well, Mr. President this is how I understand it works technically.”

Mattis still saw Iran as the key destabilizing influence in the region. In private, he could be pretty hard-line, but he had mellowed. Push them back, screw with them, drive a wedge between the Russians and Iranians, but no war.

Russia had privately warned Mattis that if there was a war in the Baltics, Russia would not hesitate to use tactical nuclear weapons against NATO. Mattis, with agreement from Dunford, began saying that Russia was an existential threat to the United States.

Mattis had formed a close relationship with Tillerson. They tried to have lunch most weeks. Mattis’s house was near the State Department and several times Mattis told his staff, “I’ll walk down and say hello to him.”

McMaster considered Mattis and Tillerson “the team of two” and found himself outside their orbit, which was exactly the way they wanted it.

To complicate things, Tillerson was having rows with the White House over personnel for the State Department. Priebus called a meeting with Tillerson and half a dozen White House staffers on the patio outside the chief of staff’s corner office. At one point Tillerson had adamantly opposed the person suggested by the White House for a senior post and he had hired his own person.

Johnny DeStefano, the director of personnel for the White House, objected. Tillerson erupted. “No one’s going to tell me who to hire and not to hire. When I got this job I was told I got to hire my people.”

“You get to hire your people,” Priebus said, intervening. “But the problem we’ve got here is that it’s going so slowly. Number one, we’re bogged down not having personnel where they need to be. Number two, it’s making us look like fools. You need to either hire these people by the end of July, or I’m going to have to start picking people.”

Tillerson soon engaged in another fight, this time in the Oval Office and in front of the president. He belittled policy adviser Stephen Miller, a Trump favorite, charging he didn’t know what he was talking about. “What did you ever really run?” he asked Miller condescendingly.

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer, who was a commander in the Naval Reserves, tried several times to persuade Mattis to appear on Sunday talk shows on behalf of the administration. The answer was always no.

“Sean,” Mattis finally said, “I’ve killed people for a living. If you call me again, I’m going to fucking send you to Afghanistan. Are we clear?”

“I’m never signing one of these recertifications again,” Trump said. “I can’t believe I’m signing this one. There’s no way you’re going to get me to sign another one.”