Meghan L. O'Sullivan (born September 13, 1969)[1] is a former deputy national security adviser on Iraq and Afghanistan. She is Jeane Kirkpatrick Professor of the Practice of International Affairs at Harvard Kennedy School and a board member of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Kennedy School.[2] She is a member of the board of directors of the Council on Foreign Relations,[3] and Raytheon,[4][5] and the North American chair of the Trilateral Commission.[6]
During her time in Iraq, O'Sullivan was involved with many key decisions on the political front, including helping to negotiate the early transfer of sovereignty to the Iraqis and assisting the Iraqis in writing their interim constitution. She is remembered for driving herself around Baghdad to meet with Iraqis, and endured some harrowing experiences while in Iraq, including escaping from a terrorist attack by scaling a building ledge ten stories up.[11]
On May 31, 2007, President Bush announced that O'Sullivan was returning to Baghdad:
to serve with Ambassador Crocker, to help the Iraqis – and to help the Embassy help the Iraqis – meet the benchmarks that the Congress and the President expect to get passed.[12]
With Stephen Hadley, she is also credited as being one of the original advocates in the White House of the 2007 "surge" strategy.[13][14] On September 15, 2007, she left the White House and began teaching at Harvard.[15]
O'Sullivan is also a One Young World Counsellor, speaking about "Peace & Conflict Resolution to a group of 1,300 young people[20] in Dublin, Ireland in 2013. O'Sullivan is currently the Chairwoman of the North American branch of the Rockefeller Trilateral Commission.
Controversy
Nonprofit and media reports have questioned whether O'Sullivan's academic work has been shaped by conflicts of interest. O'Sullivan, a noted climate scholar, has sat on the board of global oil corporation Hess. At the Harvard Kennedy School, she leads the Geopolitics of Energy initiative. According to a 2021 investigative report from student group Fossil Fuel Divest Harvard on funding Harvard research, this initiative has received funding from BP, and took steps to cover up this fact after becoming aware of investigatory efforts into the initiative's funding sources.[21][22]
O'Sullivan was instrumental in the 2003 Invasion of Iraq.[23] In April 2021, the Washington Post issued a correction to an op-ed by O'Sullivan after the original version failed to disclose her board membership at Raytheon Corp, one of the largest weapons manufacturers in the world.[24]
Honey and Vinegar: Incentives, Sanctions, and Foreign Policy, edited with Richard N. Haass, Brookings Institution Press (2000), ISBN0-8157-3355-0. [edit] By Meghan L. O'Sullivan
"The Response to Terrorism: America Mobilizes", Brookings Institution Forum, September 21, 2002. Moderator: James B. Steinberg; Scholars: Thomas E. Mann, Michael E. O'Hanlon, and Meghan L. O'Sullivan.
"The Politics of Dismantling Containment", The Washington Quarterly 27:1 (Winter 2001), pp. 67–76. Copyright 2000 by The Center for Strategic and International Studies, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
^Kaplan, Fred. (January 31, 2013). "Book Discussion on "The Insurgents:David Petraeus and the Plot to Change the American Way of War". Louisville Free Public Library. BookTV Series. C-Span. Retrieved 26 February 2015. 17 mins in. http://www.c-span.org/video/?310883-1/book-discussion-insurgents
