Today, Explained - Drone down

Episode Date: June 20, 2019

Iran kicked off the day by blowing up a very expensive US surveillance drone. Vox's Alex Ward explains why tensions keep getting more tense. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Alex Ward, co-host of the Worldly podcast, Iran shot down a U.S. drone today. Things seem to be getting kind of hostile here. Yeah, this is quite honestly the worst escalation between the U.S. and Iran in years. And this is arguably the worst foreign policy crisis of Donald Trump's presidency. Where do we begin to think about the events of the past whatever month and a half, two months? So I think before we get to those specifics, we need to actually get to two things that happened in May 2018. The first thing was Donald Trump withdraws the U.S. from the Iran nuclear deal on May 8th, 2018. The mini reminder of what the Iran nuclear deal is, is the U.S. and a bunch of other countries, European powers, Russia, China, would lift sanctions on Iran in exchange for Iran putting limits on its nuclear program.

Thank you. There was more, but that's the bottom line. Yep. Withdrawing from that deal then ratcheted up tensions. Weeks later, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo gives a speech which he effectively says, now that we've left the Iran deal, here's how the U.S. and Iran can reset relations. First, Iran must declare to the IAEA full account of the prior military dimensions of its nuclear program and permanently and verifiably abandon such work in perpetuity. Second, Iran must stop enrichment and never pursue plutonium reprocessing.

This includes closing its heavy water reactor. Third, Iran must also provide... Which is basically like, hey, stop a missile program, stop supporting proxies in the Middle East, etc., etc. You know, that list is pretty long, but if you take a look at it, these are 12 very basic requirements. Which, in combination, all amount to Iran, stop doing what you're doing, stop having the foreign policy that you have. Change everything about yourself. Pretty much everything. Everything that matters to their foreign policy, just stop doing that. And then more recently, the Trump administration declared Iran's Revolutionary Guard a terrorist

organization. That probably didn't help matters? Definitely not. It was a massive escalation in no small part to the fact that it was the first time the U.S. had ever named an entity of a foreign government as a terrorist organization. So if the U.S. was genuinely looking to restart relations with Iran, the Pompeo speech was not a way to do it. Trump's withdrawal was not a way to do it. And labeling the IRGC as a terrorist organization was not a way to do it. Does that bring us up to speed for these latest escalations? Definitely. And you need that context for what happened on May 5th, 2019. That's when National Security Advisor John Bolton puts out a statement that came out of nowhere,

which effectively said that the U.S. had obtained intelligence, credible intelligence, that Iranian threats in the Middle East could impact American citizens, troops, diplomats, and that the U.S. was put on high alert. An American show of force is heading to the Middle East. U.S. President Donald Trump's administration on Sunday announced it was sending an aircraft carrier and a fleet of bombers to the region. This provided a lot of confusion, right? Confusion one, how credible was his intelligence? Confusion two, how serious are the threats? And three, you know, Bolton has a pretty strained relationship with Iran and the Trump administration has already

been quite harsh towards Iran. So are they maybe manufacturing this a little bit? Are they overblowing maybe the intelligence that they have? And there were reports saying that maybe Bolton inflated the threat that he got. But point being, May 5th, literally everyone goes like, wait, what? How did Iran respond? Not too great. A couple days later, you had Iranian President Hassan Rouhani announce that his country would no longer comply with parts of the nuclear deal. This is the deal that the United States and President Trump have already pulled out of.

Correct. But that Iran is still complying with because of the other nations that are still involved. Exactly. But what's interesting is that May 8th, 2019, is the one-year anniversary from when Trump withdrew. So this was both symbolic in the sense of like it was one year later and it was also three days after Bolton's statement. Which parts did they pull out of? Were they cherry picking? Well, what he said was that Iran would no longer comply with a certain part of it,

mostly the amount of low enriched uranium Iran is allowed to keep within the country. Okay. This could clearly be read as a way for Iran to go, we're going to signal this big threat, right? That we're going to not abide by a certain small part of it as a way to say like, if the U.S. is out and we don't get financial relief, we're not going to be part of this anymore. Okay.

So is that like the first level of ratcheting up? What happens next? Yeah. That's just level one. U.S. investigators believe Iran or groups backed by Iran are behind attacks on four oil tankers in the Persian Gulf region. A couple days later, four oil tankers are damaged in the Strait of Hormuz, which is an immensely important waterway where, like, basically most of the world's energy passes through on tankers and that Iran patrols pretty aggressively. And these ships belong to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Norway, all allies of the United States.

Do we know who did it? We don't know 100% for sure. The U.S. says Iran did it. U.N. ambassadors to those three countries that I mentioned basically said a country did this using these kinds of capabilities. They never specifically said Iran did it, but like they all but did. And then Iran denies any involvement. Fake intelligence, which has been the root cause of all these events,

should be tackled. As soon as we get rid of this fake intelligence, all of us will be in a much better situation. Why would Iran do this? Because it doesn't really have the power to fight back against what it sees as American aggression. So, again, if its goal is to get sanctions relief, right, then it has to put pressure on the U.S. in some way. And it's doing so in what's called an asymmetric way, meaning that what Iran can do better than most is to disable oil tankers

and to patrol that important region. And so by basically saying like, hey, if you're not letting us export our oil, if you're going to hurt our economy, we're going to hurt yours too. And that is in a way a bargaining chip. If the U.S. and Iran were to come to an agreement to settle tensions, Iran can be like, we will give up, you know, hurting oil tankers in exchange for sanctions relief. Again, we're not sure it's Iran, but the U.S. says it is. So does the U.S. respond? In a way, it pulls diplomats and staff out of the U.S. embassy in Baghdad in Iraq and also a consulate in Erbil also in Iraq. So clearly, or at least the claim is, they were worried that Iran may attack those two targets and injure Americans.

So pulling the staff out was clearly a way to safeguard against that eventuality. OK, so that's like the second round of escalations, but of course there's another one, yeah? Yeah. So we have a second set of attacks on all tankers. The U.S. Navy rushed to assist two tankers in the Middle East, damaged in an apparent attack overnight. The incidents took place in the Gulf of Oman near the Strait of Hormuz. Pictures from Iranian state media reportedly show two ships, one Japanese and one Norwegian, on fire after the attack. This attack happens at the exact same time Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan is in Tehran

to kind of negotiate a U.S.-Iranian diplomatic process to calm the tensions. So that is a pretty clear signal if Iran did it. Now, the U.S. says Iran did this attack. They released a video, they released images, which basically have a mine on one of the tankers. Does Iran maintain that it wasn't responsible even after the United States releases this video? Yeah, but the evidence in some analysts' minds and a lot of analysts' minds actually is that it's pretty clear it's Iran. The video shows people on a boat taking the mine off of the side of the ship. That's what the video alleges.

The ship in question looks exactly like an Iranian fast boat. But the U.S. contention, the Trump administration's contention is Iran did it. They're responsible. Iran says no. But we clearly have a pattern here where at the time when the U.S. is saying attacks are imminent from Iran, while tensions are pretty high, a year after the U.S. leaves the Iran nuclear deal, we now have tankers being, you know, damaged all over the place in an incredibly important waterway. So what happens after the second round of attacks? Well, an Iranian nuclear official comes out and gives a speech this week,

and he says, hey, remember what Rouhani, the president, said a bit ago that we might, like, blow through and violate parts of the nuclear deal? Yeah. We're going to violate parts of the nuclear deal. There will be another set of actions if after 60 days they will not implement their commitments. So two violations are laid out. One is that the limit of low-enriched uranium

that Iran is allowed to have at 660 pounds, they're going to blow through that within, at the time, 10 days. Yeah. And violation two, which arguably is more worrying, is that they may start to enrich uranium at a higher level than in the past. The reason that's worrying is the more enriched uranium is, the more it could be used to actually make a nuclear weapon. So right now, Iran is limited at keeping it at 3.67%, something like that.

The worry is that if you get it to 90%, that's the usual target that you can enrich uranium to put it into a bomb. And is this the point when the U.S. decides to send another 1,000 troops to the Middle East? Yeah, about that time. 1,000 more U.S. troops are headed to the Middle East, a move meant to show Iran that the U.S. will not allow Tehran to continue to threaten ships around the Strait of Hormuz. So they will join 1,500 troops that were sent earlier

to bring us up to 2,500 in the region, effectively just to kind of counter Iran. It also comes that there are reports of a couple rockets landing near a base in Iraq where U.S. troops were. And we don't know who did that, but it kind of tracks with what the U.S. has intelligence on Iran is showing us. So like it's an insane situation, right? You have Iran kind of saying like we are going to violate this important deal in part because the U.S. has left it. And then you have the U.S., Iran is planning some pretty gnarly attacks

that could threaten Americans, and we're going to send more military assets and troops to the regions to deter it. And, like, neither side is backing down. Which brings us to today, when Iran shoots down a U.S. drone. We have breaking news from the Middle East at this hour. Iran says that it shot down an American drone flying over its territory,

raising fears that a larger military conflict could break out in the region. Yeah, this is a really big deal. So what happened is it looks like Iranian forces shot down an American surveillance drone while it was flying above the Strait of Hormuz. Iran says it violated Iranian territory. The U.S. denies that. But let's go with the American story for now. The American story is that this global hawk,

the big boy of our drones, right? Like this thing just sucks up all the intelligence, surveillance, audio. It's $130 million a pop. I mean, this is the first real directed attack against an American asset. And you spoke to people at the Pentagon this morning. What are they saying about this attack on the drone?

They're not pleased, right? Partly because the really big drone just came down. There's very few of them in that region. The real thing that worries them is that like this could be sort of the moment, right? That's the worry that this downing of the drone could be the moment where chaos ensues and where we see war break out. Importantly, and I think it should be noted, both sides are saying they don't want war. Like, right, you have Trump saying that. You have Iran's president saying that. No one wants to fight, but also no one wants to step down from this escalation either.

So we're sort of in this weird place where war is lingering above as an unlikely possibility. But that doesn't mean the situation isn't dangerous. In fact, it's extremely dangerous. If no one wants to go to war, why does it look like we're kind of about to go to war? That's next on Today Explained. When a billionaire like Mark Zuckerberg announces he's going to give a huge gift to public schools... $100 million. Normally, we celebrate. But this season, Unbox's future perfect...

I'm the skunk in the room always. I'm the guy who says, I don't think this is a good idea. It's an anti-democratic force. We're looking at all the different ways that philanthropy clashes with democracy. We'll tell you stories about big donors. One day she was looking over her trust and she thought, nah. And she crossed out the word indigent and so just left that money for dogs. We'll tell you about the power that those big donors wield. Nah, and she crossed out the word indigent and so just left that money for dogs.

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Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts or in your favorite podcast app. Alex Ward, if the United States doesn't want to go to war here, why does it look like it's getting ready to go to war here? Two things. Thing one, a guy named Mike Pompeo. Thing two, a guy named John Bolton. Even months before becoming National Security Advisor, Bolton was out there saying like he's hoping that people could dance in the streets of Tehran to celebrate a new regime in power. So he's had it out for Iran for a while. There's a reason why it seems we're on a bit of a war footing,

and because there's a guy who has advocated for war with Iran who has the presidency here. What about Mike Pompeo? He's a little bit more complicated. He was a fierce critic of the Iran deal when he was in Congress. He has always been quite anti-Iran in his sentiment. He views if you support Israel, which he does fiercely, then you also should be anti-Iran. How influential are Pompeo and Bolton? Amazingly, other than Trump, they are the two figures leading Trump's foreign policy.

And when it comes to Iran in a very specific and in some people's minds, dangerous way. So if Bolton, for example, according to some reports, is like inserting himself and other members of the National Security Council staff into the chain of command at the Pentagon, right? And he'll even call the Secretary of Defense and just be like, here's what we need to do. And Pompeo is out there even like the day of an oil tanker attack being like, it is Iran. We know it's Iran. We know the intelligence. He's even making statements and linking Iran to attacks that seemingly Iran had nothing to do with. And on top of that, he's going to meetings with the head of U.S. Central Command, like to have one-on-one discussions really about U.S. war plans and military efforts for Iran, which is very unusual for a Secretary of State to do.

In fact, there are many people who follow this stuff very closely who are like, I can't think of any other instance where that happened, that the Secretary of State had like a one-on-one with a military official without like a top Pentagon official really present. What about President Trump? How much are Pompeo and Bolton convincing him? Does he have a red line? So I think we need to look at this from two angles. Angle one is he has been very clear that he does not want war with Iran. He's told his advisors that. He continues to say that. Like, the one consistency has been, like, we do not seek a fight with Iran. But the second angle, which is also important, is, like, he does want to be tough on Iran, right? He did not like the nuclear deal. He wanted constantly to, like, increase the sanctions on Iran to do this maximum

pressure campaign in hopes that they would sign a better nuclear deal, they would change their behavior. And like, let's remember, Trump campaigned on like getting out of Iraq and getting out of wars in the Middle East. What about Iran? You mentioned earlier that Iran doesn't want war here either, and yet they appear to continue to provoke the United States. Iran could have done a lot worse stuff to say that they was going to leave the Iran nuclear deal. Like the stockpile of uranium, saying that they would enrich at higher levels,

it's not nothing. It is a violation. But they could have been a lot more intense. They could have done something way more provocative. Like? They could have, frankly, like sunk ships. We don't know, again, if Iran attacked the oil tankers, but if it did, using the mines to disable them is still a very provocative move.

It's still a very bad thing to do, but like it could have been worse. If you squint, you can sort of see a strategy, the strategy being like let's just impose these pretty significant but like not all the way costs on the U.S. and see if that would be enough for them to come to a table and then we have something to bargain away. How bad would war with Iran be for the region, for Iran, for the United States? If you didn't like the Iraq war, you're really going to hate the Iran war. It will likely be bloodier, messier, costlier, bigger. And frankly, there's a chance it could like ignite World War III.

Russia, China, the fact that, you know, the U.S. would probably get some help or a decent amount of help from Israel, Saudi Arabia, the UAE. The geography of Iran alone, right? It's much bigger than Iraq. It's mountainous. There are already estimates that actually conducting a successful ground campaign against Iran to like actually somewhat secure the country to win the war would be upwards of a million troops. And that's just an initial estimate. So when the actual war fighting starts, it goes higher. And that's not even discussing Iran's incredibly sophisticated missile program and submarines and mines,

like it would just be a nightmare. It would be bloody. It would be brutal. It would be lengthy, costly. It is almost the worst possible thing one could imagine. So a war with Iran, like you need to have an insane amount of appetite to really want a full-blown war. So can all of this be avoided by just going to the table with Iran and negotiating a new nuclear deal? That's a bit of a million-dollar question. So the U.S. messaging on this is all over the place. Trump would say, all I want is for Iran not to have a nuclear weapon. Okay. And then you have Pompeo saying things like, oh, if Iran were to attack American interests in the region or perhaps even kill a soldier or something, then, you know, a military response is warranted or it will at least be considered.

And like that's – those are diametrically opposed. The big issue here is like we don't know what the U.S. wants. Does it want to renegotiate nuclear deal? In which case, OK, maybe both countries go to the table and try to bang one out. But like what incentive does Iran have to agree to anything with the Trump administration, especially since the Trump administration would want something that goes beyond what Obama signed? We don't know what American policy is. We just know that being tough on Iran and imposing maximum pressure seems like not only just the method, but the goal at this point. And so, like, if you're Iran, I think you just don't know what to do. We don't really know where this ends. No one has offered a path to kind of work our way out of this. You even hear Trump being like, I'm willing to talk, but I don't think they're ready to talk yet.

So let's not talk yet. So from my vantage point, this gets way worse before it gets any better. Alex Ward reports on national security at Vox. He and his co-hosts often disagree about foreign policy and the biggest stories in the world on his podcast. It's called Worldly. I'm Sean Ramos for him. This is Today Explained. Thank you.