Former Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair once angered then-President Barack Obama during a White House meeting on Iran, after he pressed Obama on whether he could tolerate the nation obtaining a nuclear weapon, according to newly released oral history interviews.
“When it came my turn to speak at this meeting,” Blair said, “I said, ‘Mr. President, you really just have one decision to make… Are you going to tolerate Iran having a nuclear weapon or not?’” He added that rejecting a nuclear Iran would require espionage and military options, while acceptance would mean a strategy to contain and deter Iran.
The exchange, documented in interviews conducted by the University of Virginia’s Miller Center and reported by The New York Times, offers a window into internal divisions within the Obama administration as officials debated how to respond to Iran’s nuclear program.
Blair said the moment prompted a sharp warning from Obama.
“The president took me aside after that meeting and said, ‘Denny, don’t ever put me on the spot like that again,’” he recalled. “I said… ‘Yes, sir, Mr. President. I certainly won’t.’” He added, “I was kept out of meetings from that time forward.”
Blair described the meeting as one that had been presented as an opportunity to provide input on Iran policy, and he made the “mistake” of thinking Obama was honestly looking for “fresh insights.”
Blair served as Obama’s DNI from the start of his presidency in 2009 until he resigned at Obama’s request in May 2010.
Obama would go on to negotiate the Iran nuclear deal during his second term, which his administration hailed as a landmark diplomatic achievement that limited the country’s nuclear ambitions while avoiding bloodshed. Its critics savaged the deal as mere appeasement that granted unearned sanctions relief to the world’s largest state sponsor of terror.
President Donald Trump withdrew the U.S. from the agreement in 2018.
The released oral histories also include accounts of internal political discussions within the Obama White House, including deliberations over Vice President Joe Biden’s potential 2016 presidential bid.
David Plouffe, a top political strategist, urged Biden not to enter the race, telling him, “There’s no room. There’s just no room for you.”
Plouffe added, “I’m concerned about you as a human being. I’m not sure you’re in a state to run.”
Biden, who mourned the death of his son Beau in 2015, announced later that year that he would not enter the Democratic race, which came down to a heated battle between Hillary Clinton, Obama’s preferred candidate, and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.
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Clinton would go on to win the nomination and lose the general election to Donald Trump.
Obama’s office did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital‘s request for comment.
