michael barbaro

From The New York Times, I’m Michael Barbaro. This is “The Daily.”

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michael barbaro

Today, Iran is warning that it may resume production on its nuclear program, reviving a crisis that had been contained by the signing of the Iran nuclear deal four years ago — how one man within the U.S. government may have intentionally brought us to this point. It’s Monday, May 13. Mark Landler, tell me how we got to this point in the relationship between the U.S. and Iran.

mark landler

Well, Michael, the story really starts almost exactly a year ago —

archived recording (donald trump) Today, I want to update the world on our efforts to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.

mark landler

When President Trump finally makes good on a pledge he had made during the 2016 campaign.

archived recording (donald trump) I am announcing today that the United States will withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal.

mark landler

Recall, the Iran nuclear deal was signed between Iran on the one side, the United States, and three European countries — Britain, France and Germany.

michael barbaro

Mm-hm.

mark landler

And the idea behind the deal was, in return for deferring whatever nuclear ambitions it had, Iran was going to be released from these very onerous sanctions that the U.S. and the international community had imposed on it, and as a result, was going to be able to build up the rest of its economy, even while accepting that its nuclear program was going to be hindered for this period of time — roughly 15 to 20 years.

archived recording 1 Tonight, the breaking news — a major shakeup at the White House moments ago. We are just learning —

mark landler

At the same time that President Trump is making good on this campaign promise to hold the United States out of this deal, you have a new personality, a new figure entering the White House.

archived recording 2 National security advisor H. R. McMaster is gone.

mark landler

President Trump dismisses his former national security advisor, General H. R. McMaster. And McMaster is replaced by a man named John Bolton.

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michael barbaro

And what is significant about these two things — pulling out of the Iran deal and appointing John Bolton happening at the same time, roughly?

mark landler

Well, for one thing, it puts Iran on a collision course with the United States. You have the jeopardizing of this deal, which itself had resolved more than a decade of confrontation between Iran and the West.

archived recording (john bolton) The Iran deal was, in fact, the worst diplomatic debacle in American history.

mark landler

The importance of John Bolton’s arrival is that now you have an official in the middle of the policy making mix who has perhaps the hardest line record toward Iran of any senior figure in the mainstream foreign policy community.

archived recording (john bolton) If you cross us, our allies or our partners, you harm our citizens. If you continue to lie, cheat and deceive, yes, there will indeed be hell to pay.

mark landler

And John Bolton comes at Iran from a very different place than Donald Trump. Where they differ is really what the ultimate objective is. For Trump, he’s willing to sit down and talk to the existing leadership in pursuit of a better deal.

archived recording (john bolton) Look, the president has said, since really, beginning in the 2016 campaign, he’s open to negotiating with leaders like Rouhani, like with Kim Jong-un, to sit down with them. The Iranians have used negotiations in the past just to delay —

mark landler

For John Bolton, it’s something much more fundamental. He wants to install new democratic leaders in that country. He wants regime change.

archived recording (john bolton) We should provide material financial support to the opposition if they desire it. We should work with intelligence services from other countries — archived recording 1 O.K. archived recording (john bolton) Saudi, Israel, to provide more pressure. There’s a lot we can do. And we should do it. Our goal should be regime change in Iran.

mark landler

So regime change as a concept has been a part of American foreign policy, really, since World War II. The U.S. has always debated the wisdom of trying to take out or roll back enemy or adversarial governments. But what happened in the last 15 years is the phrase “regime change” became identified with the Iraq War, a war that was far more costly, far longer, far more trouble-prone than the Bush administration ever hoped.

michael barbaro

Right.

mark landler

And I think, ever since that experience and those difficult days, the idea of regime change has simply become toxic to a large portion of the foreign policy community, but also the political class, both Republican and Democrat. When people say the words “regime change,” people think about Iraq. Hence, no one wants to say those words, and so the combination of the jeopardizing of the deal and John Bolton is a very combustible mixture.

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michael barbaro

And what is Bolton’s argument for this focus on regime change in Iran?

mark landler

Bolton’s argument is that the Iranian regime is —

archived recording (john bolton) The world’s largest financier of international terrorism.

mark landler

The world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism —

archived recording (john bolton) It continues to pursue ballistic missiles.

mark landler

A potential nuclear proliferator on a grand scale —

archived recording (john bolton) The only real purpose of which is to deliver nuclear weapons when they get that capability.

mark landler

A malign influence in the region, fomenting unrest, financing militant groups in Syria, in Yemen —

archived recording (john bolton) There’s no doubt this regime is a threat in the region and globally.

mark landler

A country that is bent on the destruction of the state of Israel, a great American ally. So he really believes that much of the ills that afflict the Middle East can be laid at Tehran’s doorstep.

archived recording (john bolton) That the Tehran regime is the central problem in the Middle East.

mark landler

And that hence, the only answer, the only way to bring Iran back into the community of civilized nations is to affect a change in leadership.

michael barbaro

So basically, people so terrible that they can’t possibly be trusted to negotiate a nuclear deal.

mark landler

In a word, yes.

michael barbaro

And how does Bolton begin to set that goal in motion?

archived recording 1 At the stroke of midnight, the U.S. will reimpose stiff economic sanctions on Iran.

mark landler

Well, the first thing he does is he reimposes the sanctions that had been lifted as a consequence of the deal.

archived recording 2 The sanctions target Iran’s gold and metal Industries, its auto sector and restrict Iran from using U.S. dollars in financial transactions.

mark landler

And his goal here is to squeeze the vise around the Iranian economy to raise the pain threshold for the Iranian government, so that, in effect, they’re forced to knuckle under, to come back to the table, to acknowledge that they’re willing to swallow a less advantageous deal.

archived recording (john bolton) And I think we’ve already seen the consequences in Iran. The rial, the currency’s declined by 70 percent since the sanctions. Inflation has quadrupled. The country is in recession. I think this is going to cut into Iran’s ability to continue their nuclear program, to finance terrorism, and to engage in military activity around the Middle East. And I think —

michael barbaro

So the goal here is to make the Iranian government so frustrated with this situation that they just throw up their hands and walk away from the entire nuclear deal?

mark landler

That’s exactly right. But the Iranians do something unexpected.

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mark landler

Rather than pull out of the deal themselves, they decide to stay in it.

michael barbaro

Hm.

mark landler

And they do that for a couple of reasons. One is that the European signatories of the deal — Britain, France and Germany — all pledged to stay in the deal. So the Iranians hope that even if they’re cut off from all contact with the U.S. economy, they can continue to do some level of trading with the Europeans. And secondly, they make this calculation that Donald Trump is a one-term president, and that if they simply wait him out, perhaps he will be replaced by a friendlier successor, perhaps another Democrat. Most Democrats are on the record as saying they would reinstate the Iran nuclear deal. So there is this belief in Tehran — and it’s encouraged, by the way, by both European officials and by some people here in the United States — that they should sit tight, don’t rip up the deal and see if they can wait out Donald Trump.

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michael barbaro

So once Iran has decided to basically wait out the Trump presidency, how does the Trump administration respond to what is clearly an act of defiance by Iran?

mark landler

Well what the Trump administration does publicly is it imposes enormous pressure on the Europeans to fall in line —

archived recording (donald trump) Any nation that helps Iran in its quest for nuclear weapons could also be strongly sanctioned by the United States.

mark landler

— to start cutting off links to the Iranian government.

archived recording 1 Whether it’s the German manufacturer Siemens, the Danish shipping company Maersk, the French carmaker PSA or the French energy giant Total — all of these companies have decided to either scale down or completely pull out of Iran from fear of U.S. sanctions.

mark landler

So that’s the public side of what the Trump administration is doing. But privately, John Bolton is really building up his Iran cadre within the National Security Council. And he’s doing so by bringing in these extremely hardline figures who are experts in sanctions strategy. And he’s beginning to lay in place the pieces for sort of the next phase of the pressure campaign.

archived recording (john bolton) Good morning. I’m here to make an important foreign policy announcement concerning the Islamic Republic of Iran.

mark landler

And among the things that he begins exploring and laying the groundwork for —

archived recording (john bolton) I am announcing our intent to designate the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps —

mark landler

— are designating the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which is this sort of military wing of the Iranian leadership, designating the IRGC —

archived recording (john bolton) as a foreign terrorist organization.

mark landler

As a foreign terrorist organization.

archived recording 1 This is the first time Washington has formally labeled an arm of another country’s military as a terrorist group. The Trump administration says the Iranian force actively participates in, finances and promotes terrorism as a tool of statecraft.

michael barbaro

And what would be the significance of that in terms of Bolton’s ultimate goal here?

mark landler

Well, going after the I.R.G.C. not only hinders Iran’s ability to project malign influence around the region. It also hits at a very important source of revenue for politically connected leaders in Iran. The I.R.G.C. is, in fact, the vehicle by which a lot of Iran’s leadership enriches themselves. So going after that group both hurts Iran domestically and hurts its ability to operate internationally. Bolton also begins laying the groundwork for an even more draconian set of sanctions on Iran’s oil industry. Up until this point, the U.S. had allowed countries, some of whom are U.S. allies and are very dependent on Iranian oil, to continue to buy from Iran for some temporary period of time. But what happens now is that the administration revokes those waivers.

archived recording 1 Eight countries will be affected.

mark landler

It basically says to all of these countries — China —

archived recording 2 Japan.

mark landler

South Korea —

archived recording 3 South Korea, Turkey, Greece —

mark landler

India —

archived recording 4 and Italy.

mark landler

That no country that wants to avoid itself being blacklisted by the United States can continue to buy oil from Iran.

archived recording 5 Now you either have to cooperate or face sanctions. Here’s what —

mark landler

And the effect of this step is truly devastating to the Iranian oil industry, because it was kind of limping along, continuing to export a certain amount of oil to these countries that were operating under waivers. But once these waivers are gone, truly all of Iran’s customers are basically put in a position of saying, we cannot buy oil from you anymore.

michael barbaro

And because oil is so central to Iran’s economy, that is the economic equivalent of just kind of strangling it.

mark landler

It really is the economic lifeline of the Iranian economy, and so cutting it off 100 percent just has a truly devastating effect.

archived recording 1 Its currency, the rial, has already lost two-thirds of its value against the dollar since the year began. The I.M.F. said the Iranian economy would shrink 6 percent this year. And that was before the latest U.S. moves.

mark landler

This is a level of pressure, this is a tightening of the economic vise unlike anything the Iranians have so far experienced.

michael barbaro

But how exactly does it get to Bolton’s goal of regime change?

mark landler

Well, one school of thought is that if you reduce Iran’s oil exports to zero, you crater its currency, you tank its economy and you throw millions of Iranian people into poverty, you could, in fact, spark the kind of uprising that people like John Bolton have been waiting for for a quarter century — an uprising that would actually topple the regime from inside.

michael barbaro

Hm. So the idea is that you squeeze Iran hard enough that the regular people of Iran rise up and oust the regime, which is a little bit different than I think how most people think of regime change. You remember Iraq. Regime change was the U.S. invading. Here, it’s making the people in that country so miserable in a way that they decide to take out their own leaders.

mark landler

And it’s driven by a couple of different things. One is that, unlike Iraq, invading Iran would be a monumentally difficult undertaking. So the notion of an American invasion of Iran is really not on the table. This is more about can we make life miserable enough that we can actually bring about regime change from internally?

michael barbaro

To the degree that the administration is behind Bolton’s strategy right now, which it seems it is, are there signs that it’s actually working, that the Iranian regime is starting to collapse from within, as it’s supposed to?

mark landler

I think the short answer to that is no. There is no question that these sanctions have really hurt the Iranian economy, have devastated its oil exports. But in the main, this is a regime that seems as firmly entrenched as ever. And it’s also a regime that is still able to exert influence around the region. It continues to be active in Lebanon; it continues to be active in Syria; it continues to have a role to play in Yemen. So the answer to that is no. Neither internally nor in its neighborhood is there evidence that the Trump administration is really jeopardizing the survival of the regime.

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mark landler

And yet, this week —

archived recording 1 We’ve got some breaking news just coming across the wire out of the Middle East.

mark landler

We finally did see some signs that Iran is growing impatient.

archived recording 2 Just one year to the day after President Trump withdrew the United States from a landmark Iran nuclear agreement, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani says he has sent letters to the remaining signatories of the deal, saying —

mark landler

Iran’s president, Hassan Rouhani, announced that Iran would begin to pull away, in a modest way, from parts of the Iranian nuclear deal.

archived recording (hassan rouhani) [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]

mark landler

They would begin some very small scale enrichment of nuclear material. So they’re not violating the deal in any dramatic fashion but they’re beginning to peel away from the edges of the deal. And, perhaps more significantly, they’re putting the Europeans in a box.

archived recording 3 Iran says other countries have two months to implement their commitments to the deal, or Iran will, quote, “reduce its own.”

mark landler

So remember, the Europeans pledged to stay in the deal.

michael barbaro

Right.

mark landler

They pledged to continue to give Iran the benefits of the deal even if the United States pulled out. And essentially, what the Iranian government said to the Europeans this week is you have a certain period of time to show us that we are going to get these economic benefits, and if you can’t show us, then we’re going to pull out of the deal in a much more wholesale fashion.

archived recording 4 The Iranian president says the country will start enriching uranium again in 60 days. That’s unless Europe, Russia, and China can help Iran counter U.S. sanctions on its oil sales.

mark landler

So in effect, what they’ve done is they’ve put the Europeans in the middle of their evolving battle with the United States.

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michael barbaro

And kind of encouraged them to choose between Iran and the U.S.

mark landler

And it’s a very difficult choice. So on the one hand, the Europeans can defy President Trump and say, we’re going to continue to do business with the Iranians, in which case, the president could theoretically say, fine, I’m going to sanction you. On the other hand, if the Europeans say to the Iranians, we can’t afford to defy the United States, then Iran could say, in that case, we have a pretext, a reasonable case, for leaving this deal entirely, which is something, of course, the Europeans have been desperately trying to avoid.

michael barbaro

So is this a sign that Bolton’s plan is working? Or is it a sign that maybe it backfired?

mark landler

Well, it depends on your perspective. From the perspective of someone who wants to keep Iran’s nuclear program bottled up, it has totally backfired. From the perspective of someone who is hungry for a confrontation with Iran, it actually provides you with more of a rationale.

michael barbaro

What do you mean?

mark landler

Well, in the sense that they’re now in breach of the agreement.

michael barbaro

Hm.

mark landler

Beforehand, the United States was imposing all this pressure on Iran without really having the legal high ground, because the Iranians were complying with the terms of the deal. The American argument was, it’s a terrible deal. Now, the Iranians are in breach of the deal. So it actually gives more of a pretext, more of a case for the Trump administration to tighten the vise on the Iranians.

michael barbaro

So if you are somebody who favors regime change, not just going back to the negotiating table, this is a reasonably good place to be.

mark landler

It’s a better place to be, because now you’re dealing with a regime that has, to some extent, gone rogue, a regime that signed a deal with the international community, which won a lot of credit in Europe for sticking to the terms of that deal, which won a lot of credit at the United Nations for sticking with the terms of that deal. Well, now, suddenly, the Iranians are also in breach. So I think it does improve your position if your goal is conflict rather than some kind of diplomatic resolution.

michael barbaro

If you’re John Bolton.

mark landler

If you’re, in other words, John Bolton.

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michael barbaro

Mark, is one way to think about this that John Bolton would never have signed the Iran deal in the first place, as Obama did? So he’s basically trying to get us right back where we were before that deal was signed, which is Iran developing a nuclear program, but this time, rather than solve it through a nuclear deal, he wants to solve it another way, regime change?

mark landler

I think that’s right, because I think that John Bolton’s argument is the way to forever guarantee that Iran doesn’t develop a nuclear weapon is not to put on these complicated timelines that expire at some point in the future, but to fundamentally change the character of the government in Iran, so you just don’t have to worry about this nuclear threat at all. And trying to achieve it through arrangements, through complicated treaties, is simply never going to work because of the nature of the leadership you’re dealing with. Better to start off with a new leadership, perhaps a leadership that has no nuclear ambitions at all, and just change the equation in a more fundamental way.

michael barbaro

So Mark, are we still on a collision course with Iran?

mark landler

I’d say the more accurate way to put it is we’re back on a collision course. We had been on a collision course with Iran for much of the last decade. And there was this brief period while the deal was in place, where one could say that there was an understanding. But we’re now back in a very familiar dynamic. We continue to ratchet up the pressure. We see acts of Iranian defiance. And it’s very uncertain how the story plays out.

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michael barbaro

Mark, thank you very much.

mark landler

Thank you, Michael.

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michael barbaro

Late last week, the Trump administration announced a new round of sanctions on Iranian steel, aluminum, copper and iron aimed at further squeezing its economy. At the same time, the U.S. said it would build up its military presence around Iran, including an antiaircraft defense system, B-52 bombers and a warship. The military movements are based on U.S. intelligence suggesting that Iran’s government may try to provoke a conflict with the U.S. to cement its hold on power as the economic toll of U.S. sanctions continues to grow. We’ll be right back. Here’s what else you need to know today.

archived recording 1 The E.U. Parliament has only limited powers. It doesn’t even propose the laws that it votes on. It’s actually the unelected European Commission that comes up with those laws, which are then fleshed out by a different structure.

michael barbaro

The Times reports that Russia appears to be engaging in a widespread campaign of misinformation aimed at influencing upcoming elections for the European Parliament, the legislative branch of the European Union. Those elections, scheduled for late May, feature populist candidates who, if elected, would be hostile to the E.U. and sympathetic to Russia. The Russian campaign involves promoting right wing parties in Italy and Germany and raising questions on TV networks like Russia Today about the legitimacy of the European Parliament itself.

archived recording 2 Perhaps, though, the real question is, does it matter who you vote for? Because, in reality, even a seismic shakeup at M.E.P. level won’t have any impact on the commission nor the council, where it seems the power base really lies.

michael barbaro