Worldview and track record
Jake Sullivan’s worldview and track record (e.g., Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Dartmouth College, State Department, key advisor to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President-Elect Joe Biden) highlight:
*Attachment to Europe’s culture, history and geo-strategic thinking;
*Multilateralism through expanded national security collaboration with Europe, the UN and international alliances and organizations, rather than unilateralism;
*Democracy and human rights-driven foreign policy [however, in the Middle East, Arab regimes do not lend themselves to human rights and consider democracy an existential threat];
*The reassertion of the State Department worldview [despite its systematic blunders in the Middle East];
*The restructuring of the defense budget by expanding “civilian tools” and reducing “military tools” of national security [in a stormy world, which requires an enhanced, not reduced, US posture of deterrence].
*The shared worldview and track record of Antony Blinken (Secretary of State-designate) and Jake Sullivan may constitute the ideological backbone of President-elect Joe Biden’s foreign and national security policy-making.
Iran
Jake Sullivan played a key role in negotiating the 2015 Iran nuclear accord (JCPOA). He opposes a regime-change policy, believing that Iran’s Ayatollahs are amenable to negotiation and peaceful-coexistence. Therefore, he will ditch the current policy of financial and military pressure, attempting to rejoin the accord – while expanding its duration and scope – which he believes would restore trust and cooperation with the international community.
The JCPOA was rejected by all pro-US Arab states as articulated on December 28, 2020 by the Riyadh-based Arab News: “We should focus on the original end of the nuclear deal, which is turning Iran into a normal state that does not pose a threat to the security and safety of the international community. It is impossible to accept a deal that prevents Iran from threatening global security and peace for 15 years [which is the duration of the JCPOA], and then allow it to resume the threat. There are no reformists in Iran, capable of persuading the regime to be more open to the West. The JCPOA was not sufficiently reviewed as far as its impact on Iran’s belligerence, internationally and regionally. The Ayatollahs took immediate advantage of the JCPOA to support their [rogue] proxies and allies in the region, boost their missile program, purchase weapons, and strengthen their vast domestic repressive apparatuses….”
In fact, the JCPOA (a model of multilateralism) has not diverted Iran’s Ayatollahs from their fanatic, megalomaniacal strategic goal to control the Persian Gulf, Middle East, the Muslim World and beyond. The JCPOA has generated a financial and political tailwind to the Ayatollahs’ dominant stature in the region, unchallenged by the US, and posing an existential threat to all US Arab allies. It has bolstered Iran’s systematic subversion, terrorism and wars in the Middle East, Central Asia, Africa and Latin America, aiming to weaken the “Great US Satan,” while emerging as a nuclear power in 10-15 years, or less, following 2015.