Trump cancels military retaliation against Iran at the last moment

RFE/RL
Fri, 21 Jun 2019 15:45 UTC

U.S. President Donald Trump has confirmed that he ordered U.S. military strikes against Iran in retaliation for the shooting down of a U.S. Navy drone on June 20.

In a series of tweets on June 21, Trump said he called off strikes targeting three sites in Iran just 10 minutes before they were to be carried out.

He said he did so because he was told that the number of casualties may reach 150 people, which the president said was "not proportionate" to the downing of the unmanned U.S. surveillance aircraft.

"I am in no hurry," Trump tweeted. "Our Military is rebuilt, new, and ready to go, by far the best in the world. Sanctions are biting & more added last night. Iran can NEVER have Nuclear Weapons, not against the USA, and not against the WORLD!"

Iran says it has "indisputable" evidence that the U.S. surveillance drone was shot down after it violated Iranian airspace. The United States says the aircraft was downed while in international airspace over the Strait of Hormuz.

The U.S. envoy on Iran, Brian Hook, said on June 21 that it was "important we do everything" to deescalate tensions with Iran.

Comment: Perhaps this is relevant here: Conflicting agendas: Trump tells team to tone down tough talk on Iran

"Our diplomacy does not give Iran the right to respond with military force," Hook said on June 21 in the Saudi capital, Riyadh. "Iran needs to meet our diplomacy with diplomacy and not military force."

Comment: "Diplomacy." Yeah, right. It's not as if Iran shot down a jet carrying diplomats. Or does Hook consider a Global Hawk drone to be "diplomatic" in nature?

Reuters quotes Iranian government officials as saying that Tehran received a message from Trump via Oman overnight warning of an imminent attack on Iran and calling for talks.

The Iranian officials told Reuters that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was against having "any kind of talks" with the United States, but he would be given the message about the imminent attack.

Comment: The spokesman for Iran's National Security Council disputed this report, saying "The US didn't send any message" and "This issue is not in any way correct." Same with the US State Department:

If so, there seem to be two contradictory narratives coming from the Iranians. Elijah Magnier also heard from Iranian sources that they had received a warning:

The U.S. military says the $160 million unmanned surveillance aircraft was flying over the Strait of Hormuz in international airspace when it was shot down by an Iranian surface-to-air missile.

But Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) maintains it shot down a U.S. "spy" drone that had turned off its tracking equipment as it flew over Iran's southern province of Hormozgan -- saying the flight was a clear crossing of "our red line."

In its June 21 statement, Iran's Foreign Ministry said "even some parts of the drone's wreckage have been retrieved from Iran's territorial waters."

Later, Iranian state TV released images of what it said were "retrieved sections of a U.S. military drone." The photos showed what appeared to be the remains of a U.S. Navy RQ-4A Global Hawk, AP reported.

General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the head of the IRGC's aviation division, told Iranian state TV on June 21 that Iranian forces warned the U.S. military several times before launching a missile at the drone.

"Unfortunately, they did not answer," he said.

Hajizadeh also said Iran refrained from shooting down a U.S. Navy Boeing P-8 Poseidon plane with 35 people on board that he said was accompanying the downed drone.

"With the U.S. drone in the region there was also an American P-8 plane with 35 people on board," Iran's hard-line Tasnim news agency quoted Hajizadeh as saying. "This plane also entered our airspace and we could have shot it down, but we did not."

Hajizadeh said the debris of the drone in the photos broadcast by state TV had been collected from Iran's territorial waters.

"We hope that our enemies do not make such mistakes again," Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Musavi said in an interview with state broadcaster IRIB on June 21. "We have informed the UN and lodged a protest there against this clear and provocative violation of the United States."

Meanwhile, major international airlines -- including British Airways, Australia's Qantas, Dutch carrier KLM, Germany's Lufthansa, Emirates, Malaysia Airlines, and Singapore Airlines -- said they were suspending flights over the Strait of Hormuz.

The move came after the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration issued an emergency order banning U.S. carriers from flying in Iranian airspace over the Strait of Hormuz and Gulf of Oman.

Retaliatory Strikes 'Abruptly' Called Off

The downing of the drone came amid escalating tensions between Tehran and Washington. The United States has blamed Tehran for a series of attacks on oil tankers near the Strait of Hormuz -- including two tankers that were attacked in the Gulf of Oman on June 13.

According to a U.S. official who spoke to AP, the strikes were recommended by the Pentagon and were among the options presented to senior administration officials.

Officials said Trump had initially approved attacks on several Iranian targets, including radar and missile batteries, the Times reported.

The report said the strikes were to take place just before dawn on June 21 to minimize the risk to Iranian military personnel or to civilians.

Comment: Apparently the aircraft and warships were already in position and ready to fire when Trump called off the attack.

The decision to launch 'limited' military strikes on Iran was all but a done deal up to 7pm EST, when Trump withdrew his approval from the already unravelling operation, the New York Times reported on Thursday night, followed by ABC News and AP, also citing US officials aware of the internal discussions.

The military planes and vessels were already scrambled and were waiting for the go-ahead from Washington.

The media reports indicate that Trump was talked out of striking Iran while meeting with national security aides and congressional leaders prior to the proposed strike.

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, who was present at the meeting with Trump, said lawmakers urged him to avoid further escalation, warning of "unintended consequences" from inflaming the standoff.

"The president certainly listened to what we had to say," Schiff told AP.

But some doubt the truthfulness of this narrative:

Trump had already been playing down the downing of the drone, calling it unintentional and relatively minor. So there are several possibilities: the hawks planned and pushed for the strike (with or without initially convincing Trump, who finally decided to abandon the idea), the strike was planned as a bit of political theater a la the strikes on Syria in previous years complete with warnings to the Iranians in order to avoid further escalation and retaliation (which the Iranians may have rejected).

Sputnik reports:

A pair of US Air Force B-52 Stratofortress bombers, each capable of carrying up to tens of thousands of kilograms of munitions, including long-range cruise missiles and nuclear bombs, flew over the Persian Gulf on Friday morning following Iran's shooting down of a US reconnaissance drone a day earlier, radar data posted by flight monitoring resources has revealed.

The bombers, flying out of the Al Udeid Air Base southwest of Doha, Qatar and going by the call signs GRIMM21 and GRIMM23, were reported active over the Gulf soon after President Trump told reporters that Iran and the world would soon "find out" how the US would respond.

The strategic bombers were reportedly being escorted by four F-15C Eagle fighter jets.

Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister gave this assessment of the current situation:

"I will not give estimates of what was really happening over the recent hours in this context, but the information that we have shows absolutely clearly that the situation is extremely dangerous. I would call this balancing on the brink of war ... Most 'fires' in the Middle East were sparked by Washington's 'arsonist' policies. There still is a risk of conflict, and we call on responsible players again - if there are any responsible players left in Washington - to assess the possible consequences. We warn them against hasty steps", Ryabkov told reporters.

This report suggests what many already suspect, that Bolton is the one pushing hardest for Trump to go full Neocon on Iran:

US President Donald Trump is currently engaged in a debate with National Security Adviser John Bolton over how to deal with the Iran issue, a senior White House official has told CNN.

The official reportedly said that in the Iran debate between Trump and Bolton, officials such as Pompeo, Vice President Mike Pence and incoming acting Secretary of Defense Mark Esper play the role of "swing votes".
...
The President reminded reporters in the Oval Office that "I want to get out of these endless wars. I campaign on that."

His tempered remarks were in sharp contrast to positions voiced by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and particularly harsh warnings of John Bolton and other senior security aides.

CNN learned from a senior diplomatic source that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo acts as "a triangulator" between Donald Trump and John Bolton on the Iran issue.

"From what we've seen, Pompeo has made an effort to be a sort of triangulator between Bolton's well-known views and the President -- somewhere in between," the diplomatic source said.

But judging from his public statements, it seems Pompeo is more in the Bolton camp than the Trump camp. Trump watches Tucker Carlson. Maybe Carlson is the one Trump is really listening to:

Along the same lines, Abdel Bari Atwan warns:

Even if there is no direct US attack, the Iranians will not simply sit back and wait to be starved into submission by Trump's embargo and halting of their oil exports. That is another thing the US president does not understand. And he may never understand it until he sees the extent of their retaliation against his country's forces, warships and bases, and his allies' cities, airports, and power and desalination plants.

That last bit is in reference to a missile strike on a Saudi desalination plant, allegedly originating from Yemen.