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White House diplomat held at least five secret meetings with Iran, paving way for disastrous nuke agreement

Dec 24, 2013 9:56 am By Robert Spencer

ClintonJakeSullivan.jpgHillary Clinton with Jake Sullivan

Jake Sullivan, says Clinton aide Philippe Reines, is “essentially a once-in-a-generation talent.” His talent was apparently on abundant display when he took advantage of the “opportunity” presented “after Iranians elected a new, more moderate president this summer.” He was instrumental in negotiating the disastrous Iranian nuke deal that involves concessions only by the West and does nothing to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons. Says Sullivan: “Our government “” any government, any organization “” is the sum of the human beings who operate it, who bring with them all their faults, foibles, and frailties, and all of their creativity and cleverness.”

That is true. Jake Sullivan seems to be the quintessential company man, the epitome and perfect exponent of the entrenched State Department establishment whose diagnoses, recommendations and policies have been proven wrong again and again and again, and yet which sails on without any recognition of how spectacularly it has failed, reapplying the same failed non-solutions to an ever-increasing number of new problems. The Iranian nuke deal is just the latest failure in an astonishingly long string of them, including the idea that the U.S. could establish stable Western-style republics in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the idea that Israel must be compelled to make concessions that will bring lasting peace with the “Palestinians,” and the proposition that Islam is a Religion of Peace and that counter-terror analysis must not study or even mention Islam in connection with terrorism or as part of any attempt to understand the motives and goals of jihad terrorists.

But when the Iranian nuke deal finally explodes in one way or another, Jake Sullivan will be unhurt. His star will continue to rise, like those of so many others before him. State Department wonks are never, ever called to account for their failures, and their false premises are never examined. They just get promoted, and set up for yet another failure.

“Vanishing adviser reappears as Iran policy player,” by Julie Pace for the Associated Press, December 23:

WASHINGTON (AP) “” Last year, while Jake Sullivan was traveling with his boss, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, he quietly disappeared during a stop in Paris. He showed up again a few days later, rejoining Clinton’s traveling contingent in Mongolia.

In between, Sullivan secretly jetted to the Middle Eastern nation of Oman to meet with officials from Iran, people familiar with the trip said. The July 2012 meeting is one of the Obama administration’s earliest known face-to-face contacts with Iran and reveals that Sullivan – who moved from the State Department to the White House earlier this year – was personally involved in the administration’s outreach to the Islamic republic far earlier than had been reported.

Senior administration officials had previously confirmed to The Associated Press that Sullivan and other officials held at least five secret meetings with Iran this year, paving the way for an interim nuclear agreement signed in November by Iran, the United States and five other world powers.

The cloak-and-dagger diplomacy may seem like a tough assignment even for a grizzled foreign policy veteran, but Sullivan is just 37 and looks even younger. Even-keeled and pragmatic, Sullivan’s temperament mirrors that of President Barack Obama, people close to him say. That helped him crack the tight-knit foreign policy team at the White House where he serves as Vice President Joe Biden’s national security adviser.

While Biden is a possible presidential candidate in 2016, Sullivan remains loyal to Clinton and is seen as her likely pick for White House national security adviser, should she run for president and win.

“He’s essentially a once-in-a-generation talent,” said Philippe Reines, a longtime Clinton aide who worked closely with Sullivan during their tenure at the State Department.

Sullivan has a gleaming resume: undergraduate and law degrees from Yale, Rhodes scholar at Oxford, and clerk for Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer. He entered politics by serving as chief counsel to Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, Sullivan’s home state….

In March, just one month after starting at the White House, Sullivan secretly boarded a military plane and headed back to Oman. This time he was joined by deputy secretary of state William Burns, one of the nation’s most seasoned diplomats and a mentor to Sullivan. Waiting for them in Oman was a small handful of senior Iranian officials, wary but also curious about the possibility of a thaw in relations between the longtime adversaries.

Sullivan’s contacts with the Iranians in 2012 and early 2013 were largely focused on logistics and finding out whether Americans and Iranians could even get in the same room together. But after Iranians elected a new, more moderate president this summer, the meetings quickly morphed into substantive discussions about ways to tame Iran’s disputed nuclear program.

They seem really to believe this nonsense.

“By the early fall, I think it became clear to all of us that there was an opportunity,” Burns said in an interview. “But neither Jake nor I underestimated the difficulty.”…

Sullivan wouldn’t comment on his outreach to Iran and declined to be interviewed for this story. But a speech he gave at the University of Minnesota last year provides some insight into how he views his quick rise in Washington and his view of public policy as a “study in imperfection.”

“Our government “” any government, any organization “” is the sum of the human beings who operate it, who bring with them all their faults, foibles, and frailties, and all of their creativity and cleverness,” he said.

Or lack thereof.

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