A side deal on Iran deal; Trump: we might not pull out of Syria; Truck-stopping ray gun in the works; Pentagon’s JEDI cloud is just the first; and just a bit more...
A new Iran deal? U.S. and European diplomats have been working for several months on a “supplemental agreement” to the Iran nuclear deal, the State Department’s top policy planner tells NPR. Here’s Brian Hook, senior policy advisor to the Secretary of State: “Over the last few months, we have been working pretty diligently with the British, the French, and the Germans on achieving a supplemental agreement that the president has requested, that would address a lot of the problems with the existing deal.”
Also: America’s deals expire when a new president is elected. That is the extraordinary assertion that follows from Cook’s statements that the deal is not binding on the U.S.: “It’s not a treaty. It’s not an executive agreement. It has no signatures. It has no legal status. It is a political commitment by an administration that is no longer in office.” It is a weak agreement, he said, that “did not have the votes in the Senate to make it something permanent and enduring.”
Response: Foreign policy specialist Jonah Blank, writing on Twitter, called that “exceptionally dangerous — and not just for #IranDeal, or its impact on #NorthKorea — If nations can’t trust US commitments made ‘by an administration that is no longer in office,’ then EVERY pledge is valid for only 4 years.”
Back to Cook’s interview: He said the U.S. and France were on the same page about needing “a stronger approach” that extends limits on Iran’s nuclear development, ICBM work, and influence in the region. But he added that much work remains, and it’s unclear whether agreement can be reached with the Europeans — much less fellow JCPOA signatories Russia and China, much much less Iran.
What might the U.S. offer Iran to accept this new deal? NPR’s Steve Inskeep asked Cook, who didn’t answer directly.
So what if the deal falls apart? “If Iran were to restart its nuclear program, it would create a much bigger set of problems for them.” Listen to the whole thing, here.
Trump signals openness to the supplemental agreement he directed. At the White House, the president declined to say whether he would keep the U.S. in the Iran deal. CBS: “The clock has been ticking towards that May 12 deadline after Trump waived sanctions in January. He warned that this – his fourth extension of the deal – would be the last unless European allies worked with the U.S. to fix those deficiencies. The next sanctions waivers will have to be signed May 12, or else certain sanctions automatically snap back. “Either fix the deal’s disastrous flaws, or the United States will withdraw,” Trump said in a statement at the time. “This is a last chance.” Read, here.
More on that, and other Trump-Macron visit highlights from the New York Times, here.
From Defense One
The Pentagon Is Making a Ray Gun to Stop Truck Attacks // Patrick Tucker: A device that resembles an old phonograph may soon be used to jam and shut down vehicles like the one that killed 10 people in Toronto.
The Politics of Hating (And Loving) France // Kevin Baron: From freedom fries to fast friends, after the Macron visit will Republicans who choose to stand with Trump continue to stand with France? The war on terrorism may depend on it.
JEDI Will Be Just One of Many Clouds, Says Pentagon's No. 2 // Frank Konkel and Marcus Weisgerber: The giant, groundbreaking IT contract may cover just a fraction of the cloud-services orders to come.
Welcome to this Wednesday edition of The D Brief by Ben Watson and Bradley Peniston. And if you find this useful, consider forwarding it to a friend or colleague. They can subscribe here for free. On this day in 1961, Robert Noyce patented the integrated circuit, critical to the development of more powerful computers. Noyce would become the co-founder of Intel seven years later.
“So much for an abrupt U.S. pullout from Syria,” is how the Associated Press’s veteran national security correspondent Bob Burns opened his report from the Trump-Macron visit Tuesday.
The old Trump position on Syria, stated in a late March rally in Pennsylvania: "We'll be coming out of Syria, like, very soon. Let the other people take care of it now."
Trump’s position on Tuesday, standing with Macron: “As far as Syria is concerned, I would love to get out. I'd love to bring our incredible warriors back home.”
But that might not be so easy, he conceded moments later: “We'll be coming home. But we want to have a very, very strong — we want to leave a strong and lasting footprint, and that was a very big part of our discussion.”
For the record, AP’s Burns writes, “The United States is not slowing down in Syria,” according to Coalition spokesman U.S. Army Col. Ryan Dillon, who briefed reporters via VTC at the Pentagon Tuesday. “In fact,” Burns writes off Dillon’s presser, “the number of U.S. airstrikes against remaining pockets of IS fighters in eastern Syria had increased in the past week.” Read on, here.
New report on an ugly way of war in Syria — specifically, attacks on hospitals and health care facilities: “A new study compiled nearly 200 incidents in 2016 in northern Syria — double the amount from a previous attempt to come up with data,” NPR reported Tuesday, adding ominously: “Everyone agrees that number is likely an undercount.”
Are you a fan of “anti-interventionist” John Quincy Adams? Former DOD official Joseph Bosco considers how America’s sixth president might view the war in Syria and America’s involvement in it. The thought experiment begins over at the National Interest, here.
A new insurgency in Iraq? The U.S. military is monitoring the emergence of a group which calls itself, translated from Arabic, “the White Banner” or “the White Flags,” Task & Purpose’s Jeff Schogol reported Tuesday after speaking to outgoing Coalition spox Dillon.
How and where the U.S. military sees the group: as “an ISIS-offshoot that is located primarily around Kirkuk and Tuz Khurmatu,” in the north of the country.
End strength: "Currently, the group is relatively small with between 150 and 700 or so fighters," Jennifer Cafarella, of the Institute for the Study of War, told T&P. "It was formed by jihadists who had left Hawija, possibly including current or former members of Al Qaeda."
According to Carafella, the existence of this group “reflects that not only can ISIS live on, but the alienation of Sunni populations from the Iraqi government can spawn additional post-ISIS insurgencies.” Read on, here.
Incoming personnel news: The U.S. Senate on Tuesday confirmed Trump’s pick to lead NSA, U.S. Cyber Command. Army Lt. Gen. Paul Nakasone will take over for Navy Adm. Michael S. Rogers, who is retiring, the Washington Post reported.
A bit more about the new guy: “Nakasone currently leads Army Cyber Command, which is part of Cybercom, and over more than 30 years in the military he has acquired experience in cyberoperations and signals intelligence. The latter is intelligence derived from electronic systems used by foreign targets, such as computers, radars and weapons systems. The NSA’s mission is limited to gathering information about foreign terrorists, individuals and organizations.”
Next steps: “The new assignment also comes with a promotion to four-star general. A change-of-command ceremony is scheduled for May 4.” More here.
In outgoing personnel news: “A National Security Aide’s Departing Wish: Cooking for the State Dinner,” from the New York Times, reporting on outgoing Michael Anton, “who ended a roiling 14-month stint at the National Security Council on Tuesday by cooking dinner for the president of France,” the Times’ Mark Landler reported Tuesday.
Longevity in the Trump era. By way of contrasts, here’s an underappreciated fact about how SecDef Mattis keeps his job, according to a New Yorker profile of former State Secretary Rex Tillerson: “Tillerson’s Texas swagger, the source close to the White House said, irked Trump. ’You just can’t be an arrogant alpha male all the time with Trump. You have to do what Mattis does, which is, ‘Mr. President, you’re the President, you’re smarter than me, you won, your instincts are always right, but let me just give you the other view, sir.’”
ICYMI: All four service chiefs are now on the record saying there has been no harm to [their] units from transgender troops serving in the military, Military Times reported Tuesday. The latest official to say as much was Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Dave Goldfein, who spoke to lawmakers in Washington on Tuesday. Read each service chief’s take, in his own words, here.
This week in odd news graphic choices: What’s “the most natural way to illustrate the widening gap in inter-Korean electricity production?” With a Darth Vader helmet, obviously, jokes the Wall Street Journal’s Seoul Bureau Chief, Jonathan Cheng, after spotting exactly that in this feature from the Korea Herald.
President Trump’s focus on U.S. border relations is apt to increase in the coming days. That’s because a D.C. federal judge ruled Tuesday against the Trump administration's decision to end a program protecting some young immigrants from deportation, called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA.
The given reason: Suspending DACA was seen by the judge to be “based on the ‘virtually unexplained’ grounds that the program was ‘unlawful,’” the New York Times reported Tuesday evening.
What now? The USG has three months (90 days) to make its case. Or, “to better explain its reasoning for canceling [the program]. If the department fails to do so, it ‘must accept and process new as well as renewal DACA applications,’ Judge Bates said in the decision.
Meanwhile down in Tijuana, that “caravan” of immigrants that the president tweeted about on April Fool’s Day — “‘Caravans’ coming. Republicans must go to Nuclear Option to pass tough laws NOW. NO MORE DACA DEAL!” — has arrived to the U.S.-Mexico border, Southern California’s CBS8 news reports.
Present: “around 400 men, women and children. For now, they will all sleep in tents set up for them near Tijuana.
Said DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen: “If members of the 'caravan' enter the country illegally, they will be referred for prosecution for illegal entry in accordance with existing law. For those seeking asylum, all individuals may be detained while their claims are adjudicated efficiently and expeditiously, and those found not to have a claim will be promptly removed from the United States." More here.
Today in national security podcasts, have a drink with the wonks of Rational Security, who talk each week about everything from the U.S. military and policy goals in the Middle East, to the Russia probe back stateside, to reading the tea leaves in North and South Korean relations. Rational Security’s promise to listeners: “There's always a laugh. Often, there are guests. Sometimes there's even Scotch.”
Wonking it up each week: Shane Harris of the Washington Post, Susan Hennessey and Benjamin Wittes of Lawfare and the Brookings Institution, and Tamara Cofman Wittes, who directs the Center for Middle East Policy at Brookings. New episodes usually arrive by noon on Thursdays. So head over here and give a listen.