President Trump May Strike Iran – VP Pence & Pompeo Warn Him Against Attack

Trump Sought Options for Attacking Iran to Stop Its Growing
Nuclear Program

The president was dissuaded from moving ahead with a strike by
advisers who warned that it could escalate into a broader conflict
in his last weeks in office. Vice President Mike Pence and
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warned President Trump against a
strike on Iran and described the potential risks of military
escalation.

WASHINGTON — President Trump asked senior advisers in an Oval
Office meeting on Thursday whether he had options to take action
against Iran’s main nuclear site in the coming weeks. The meeting
occurred a day after international inspectors reported a
significant increase in the country’s stockpile of nuclear
material, four current and former U.S. officials said on
Monday.

A range of senior advisers dissuaded the president from moving
ahead with a military strike. The advisers — including Vice
President Mike Pence; Secretary of State Mike Pompeo; Christopher
C. Miller, the acting defense secretary; and Gen. Mark A. Milley,
the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff — warned that a strike
against Iran’s facilities could easily escalate into a broader
conflict in the last weeks of Mr. Trump’s presidency.

Any strike — whether by missile or cyber — would almost
certainly be focused on Natanz, where the International Atomic
Energy Agency reported on Wednesday that Iran’s uranium stockpile
was now 12 times larger than permitted under the nuclear accord
that Mr. Trump abandoned in 2018. The agency also noted that Iran
had not allowed it access to another suspected site where there was
evidence of past nuclear activity.

Mr. Trump asked his top national security aides what options
were available and how to respond, officials said.

After Mr. Pompeo and General Milley described the potential
risks of military escalation, officials left the meeting believing
a missile attack inside Iran was off the table, according to
administration officials with knowledge of the meeting.

Mr. Trump might still be looking at ways to strike Iranian
assets and allies, including militias in Iraq, officials said. A
smaller group of national security aides had met late Wednesday to
discuss Iran, the day before the meeting with the president.

White House officials did not respond to requests for
comment.

The episode underscored how Mr. Trump still faces an array of
global threats in his final weeks in office. A strike on Iran may
not play well to his base, which is largely opposed to a deeper
American conflict in the Middle East, but it could poison relations
with Tehran so that it would be much harder for President-elect
Joseph R. Biden Jr. to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear accord, as he
has promised to do.

Since Mr. Trump dismissed Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper and
other top Pentagon aides last week, Defense Department and other
national security officials have privately expressed worries that
the president might initiate operations, whether overt or secret,
against Iran or other adversaries at the end of his term.

The events of the past few days are not the first time that Iran
policy has emerged in the final days of a departing administration.
During the last days of the Bush administration in 2008, Israeli
officials, concerned that the incoming Obama administration would
seek to block it from striking Iran’s nuclear facilities, sought
bunker-busting bombs, bombers and intelligence assistance from the
United States for an Israeli-led strike.

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Vice President Dick Cheney later wrote in his memoir that he
supported the idea. President George W. Bush did not, but the
result was a far closer collaboration with Israel on a cyberstrike
against the Natanz facility, which took out about 1,000 of Iran’s
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Ever since, the Pentagon has revised its strike plans multiple
times. It now has traditional military as well as cyberoptions, and
some that combine the two. Some involve direct action by Israel.
ImageA satellite image of the Natanz facility, where the
International Atomic Energy Agency reported that Iran’s uranium
stockpile was now 12 times larger than permitted under the nuclear
accord that Mr. Trump abandoned in 2018. A satellite image of the
Natanz facility, where the International Atomic Energy Agency
reported that Iran’s uranium stockpile was now 12 times larger than
permitted under the nuclear accord that Mr. Trump abandoned in
2018.Credit…Maxar Technologies/Reuters

The report from the International Atomic Energy Agency concluded
that Iran now had a stockpile of more than 2,442 kilograms, or over
5,385 pounds, of low-enriched uranium. That is enough to produce
about two nuclear weapons, according to an analysis of the report
by the Institute for Science and International Security. But it
would require several months of additional processing to enrich the
uranium to bomb-grade material, meaning that Iran would not be
close to a bomb until late spring at the earliest — well after Mr.
Trump would have left office.

While the amount is concerning, it is far below the amount of
fuel Iran possessed before President Barack Obama reached a nuclear
accord with Tehran in July 2015. Late that year, under the terms of
the accord, Iran shipped about 97 percent of its fuel stockpile to
Russia — about 25,000 pounds — leaving it with less than it would
need to build a single weapon.

The Iranians stuck to those limits even after Mr. Trump scrapped
U.S. participation in the Iran accord in 2018 and reimposed
sanctions. The Iranians began to slowly edge out of those limits
last year, declaring that if Mr. Trump felt free to violate its
terms, they would not continue to abide by them.

But the Iranians have hardly raced to produce new material:
Their advances have been slow and steady, and they have denied
seeking to build a weapon — though evidence stolen from the country
several years ago by Israel made clear that was the plan before
2003.

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Mr. Trump has argued since the 2016 campaign that Iran was
hiding some of its actions and cheating on its commitments; the
inspectors’ report last week gave him the first partial evidence to
support that view. The report criticized Iran for not answering a
series of questions about a warehouse in Tehran where inspectors
found uranium particles, leading to suspicion that it had once been
some kind of nuclear-processing facility. The report said Iran’s
answers were “not technically credible.”

The International Atomic Energy Agency has previously complained
that inspectors have been barred from fully reviewing some
suspected sites.

It is not just the U.S. military that is looking at options. Mr.
Pompeo, officials said, is closely watching events unfolding on the
ground in Iraq for any hint of aggression from Iran or its proxy
militias against American diplomats or troops stationed there.

Mr. Pompeo already drew up plans to close the U.S. Embassy in
Baghdad over concerns of potential threats, although in recent days
he appeared willing to leave that decision to the next
administration. Mortar and rocket attacks against the embassy have
waned over the past several weeks, and the task to shutter the
largest American diplomatic mission in the world could take months
to complete.

But officials said that could change if any Americans are killed
before Inauguration Day.

Officials are especially nervous about the Jan. 3 anniversary of
the U.S. strike that killed Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, the
commander of Iran’s elite Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary
Guards Corps, and the Iraqi leader of an Iranian-backed militia —
deaths that Iranian leaders regularly insist they have not yet
avenged.

Mr. Pompeo, who has been the most strident proponent among Mr.
Trump’s advisers of hobbling Iran while the administration still
can, has more recently made clear that the death of an American was
a red line that could provoke a military response.

That would also increase tensions between Washington and
Baghdad. Diplomats said Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi of Iraq
would almost certainly object to the killing of Iraqis — even
Iranian-backed militiamen — on Iraqi soil by U.S. forces who
already face demands to leave.

Worried by the shutdown of the nation’s universities for about
eight months, governors have asked the Federal Government and the
Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) to shift grounds.

They are pleading with the Federal Government to create a
temporary salary payment window pending the outcome of the ongoing
testing of the University Transparency and Accountability
Solution (UTAS), recommended by ASUU.

The National Information Technology Development Agency
(NITDA) is already subjecting UTAS to test.

It was learnt that the governors have met with some past leaders
of ASUU on how to end the strike on mutual terms.

ASUU has been on strike since March 23, leading to a near
loss of 2019/2020 academic session.

The nation’s varsities may also record admission backlogs,
should the crisis persist beyond December.

According to investigation, the governors are disturbed by the
consequences of the continued closure of the universities on the
future of younger generation.

The governors felt the deadlock in talks between ASUU and the
Federal Government was amenable.

It was also gathered that the governors felt they could fill in
the gaps between the two parties without bruising any side.

A source, who was in the know of the intervention, said they
identified the row over IPPIS as compounding the negotiation
with ASUU.

The source said: “The governors have met behind-the-scene with
all the ministers either involved or connected with the negotiation
with ASUU.

“During a session with the Minister of Finance, Budget and
National Planning, Hajiya Zainab Shamsuna Ahmed, the governors’
representatives asked the Federal Government to create a temporary
salary payment window which can be a stop-gap between IPPIS and
UTAS.

“They said the temporary payment modality will subsist until
UTAS or any other payment is agreed upon by both parties. They said
the nation cannot afford to continue to shut down its varsities
endlessly.”

A governor told our correspondent: “We have reached out to past
and present ASUU leaders to put the interest of the nation above
personal desires.

“Our main message to all the parties is to shift grounds on all
the issues at the negotiation table.

“The two sides need to face the reality of the economic
challenges at hand and accommodate all issues within the nation’s
capacity. We believe, there are quick win demands of ASUU and there
are long-term ones. But with sincere dialogue, the Federal
Government and ASUU can reach amicable agreement.”

The conciliator between the two parties, Minister of Labour
and Employment Dr. Chris Ngige, last week said the Federal
Government had tried its best to meet the demands of ASUU.

Ngige said only three things needed to be resolved.

He listed the additional concessions given to ASUU as
follows:

• Receipt of ASUU’s University Transparency and
  Accountability Solution (UTAS) salary payment proposal and
  presentation to NITDA for verification 
• Readiness of the government to pay N40b for Earned
  Allowances for ASUU members, other unions
• FG to set up visitation panels for all
  universities
• The FG-ASUU renegotiation team likely for
  inauguration. 
• N20billion for the revitalization of
  universities.