OPINION:
Three years ago, on Jan. 3, 2020, the United States launched a military drone strike that killed Qasem Soleimani, the Iranian Quds Force commander.
I was in the White House Situation Room as the strike progressed. With Soleimani considered by most the senior military commander in Iran based on his role in external military affairs and pure charisma, the attack was designed to send a clear message. It did. Looking back, the lead-up to that moment offers leadership lessons for how to deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s actions today in Ukraine.
In any conflict involving presidential decision-making, there is a time and a place to escalate a response. The key is when to do so with a clear end-state objective. There is a time for super escalation.
In late December 2019 and on New Year’s Day 2020, Iraqi paramilitary forces, supported by Iran, attacked locations in Iraq where U.S. contractors and military were present and attacked our embassy in Baghdad. An American contractor was killed in the paramilitary strike, and in the days that followed, Iranian-supported Iraqis launched an attempt to breach our embassy. The man behind the attack was Qasem Soleimani.
In the months preceding these events, there was a dangerous tit-for-tat series of Iranian actions and counteractions. Throughout these moments, our responses were measured, but then-President Donald Trump was clear: Kill an American, and the response would be significant.
Rocket attacks in northern Iraq killed an American contractor and moved the situation toward a major escalation. It was compounded on New Year’s Day when the White House Situation Room called and said the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad was under attack. The embassy began destroying documents, an indicator that there was fear the embassy would fall. There were two wake-up calls.
The national security adviser called the president. I called and woke the vice president. In the hours that followed, I stayed in constant contact with the vice president, as did national security adviser Robert O’Brien with the president. The message from the president was clear: The embassy would not fall.
In the hours that followed, the president wanted to know who was behind these attacks. The intelligence community response was clear: Soleimani. Sitting in the Yellow Oval Room in the White House residence, the discussion moved to target him. Many thought it would be too hard to get to Soleimani and he would change any travel schedules. I said otherwise. I said arrogance and hubris would kill the Iranian general because he believed he was untouchable.
After listening to his advisers, Mr. Trump issued his order: Get Soleimani. It was super-escalation. The director of the CIA at the time, Gina Haspel, said it best: “Buckle up.”
After Soleimani was killed, the Iranian leadership knew they had crossed a threshold and Supreme Leader Khamenei was next on the target list. This was proved days later when the Iranian Air Defense Force shot down a Ukrainian airliner leaving Tehran because they believed it was U.S. forces targeting Iran’s leadership. In the year that followed, Iranian and Iraqi proxy attacks were minimal.
As we approach a year since Mr. Putin invaded Ukraine, there does not appear to be an end in sight. The Biden administration has never defined an end state except to say, “Whatever it takes and as long as it takes.” This is more of a bumper sticker than a policy.
Ukraine is becoming a country in ruins that will take billions of dollars to rebuild. One-third of its population are refugees. Tens of thousands of its soldiers are dead or wounded. All the while, the United States provides Ukraine with three-quarters of its military, economic and humanitarian aid. Still, assistance to Ukraine has not been swift, and only somewhat precise. There does not appear to be an end state in sight. The Biden administration is faced with a key decision point: What is Mr. Putin’s threshold for changing his goals, and will he do this?
Mr. Putin, unlike Iran, sits atop a nuclear arsenal. The risk calculus is different. But risk is the province of war. And make no doubt, we are a proxy to this war. An end to the war in Ukraine is in our best interest. It allows us to continue the pivot to face our greatest rising adversary, China. To get there, we must raise the stakes with Mr. Putin.
Escalate with the intent to allow Ukraine to defeat the Russian army in Ukraine. It means deploying our most advanced military systems and providing our best intelligence and advice. What is also needed is for President Biden to tell Mr. Putin directly what we intend to do. The choice becomes his: Lose the Russian army in the field to defeat or negotiate an end state. Mr. Putin knows the defeat of the Russian army is probably his defeat as well. Mr. Putin has failed in his grand design to defeat Ukraine. We need to remind him of that and give him the offramp: defeat or negotiation.
• Keith Kellogg is a retired three-star Army general who served as acting national security adviser to President Donald Trump and national security adviser to Vice President Mike Pence. He is currently the co-chair of the Center for American Security at the America First Policy Institute and is the author of “War by Other Means: A General in the Trump White House” (Regnery, 2021).
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