Mailing address
Littauer 329A
79 JFK Street
Mailbox 53
Cambridge, MA, 02138
Meghan L. O'Sullivan
Jeane Kirkpatrick Professor of the Practice of International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School
Member of the Board, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
Contact:
Telephone: 617-496-4308
Fax: 617-495-8963
Email: meghan_osullivan@ksg.harvard.edu
Experience
Meghan L. O'Sullivan is the Jeane Kirkpatrick Professor of the Practice of International Affairs at the John F. Kennedy School at Harvard University. Her expertise includes nation-building, counterinsurgency, the geopolitics of energy, decision making in foreign policy, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.
From July 2004 to September 2007, Dr. O'Sullivan was Special Assistant to President George W. Bush and also held the position of Deputy National Security Advisor for Iraq and Afghanistan for the last two years of this tenure. In this capacity, she led an office of diplomats, lawyers, economists, and political appointees at the National Security Council in staffing the President and National Security Advisor on all matters associated with Iraq and Afghanistan and in coordinating all agencies of the U.S. government with equities in Iraq and Afghanistan. There, she helped run two strategic policy reviews: one on Afghanistan in the summer of 2006 and one on Iraq in late 2006 and early 2007. She spent two of the last eight years in Iraq, including returning in the fall 2008 to help conclude the security agreement and strategic framework agreement between the United States and Iraq.
Prior to being named Deputy National Security Advisor for Iraq and Afghanistan, Dr. O'Sullivan was with the NSC staff as Senior Director for Strategic Planning and Southwest Asia. Before joining the NSC, Dr. O'Sullivan was political advisor to the Administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority and the Deputy Director for Governance in Baghdad, Iraq from April 2003 to June 2004. There, she was a key negotiator of the agreement for the early transfer of sovereignty to the Iraqis. She also helped the Iraqis create the institutions which became the foundations of their new political system, such as the Transitional Administrative Law (interim constitution) and the Iraqi Interim Government. From November 2001 to March 2003, Dr. O'Sullivan worked at the Office of Policy Planning at the Department of State, where she was the chief advisor to the presidential envoy to the Northern Ireland peace process and helped advance efforts to promote reform in the Muslim world. From 1998-2001, Dr. O'Sullivan was a Fellow at the Brookings Institution. During that time, she was also an adjunct professor at Georgetown University and published several books and articles on American foreign policy, including Shrewd Sanctions: Statecraft and State Sponsors of Terrorism (2003) and edited volume (with Richard Haass) Honey and Vinegar: Incentives, Sanctions, and Foreign Policy (2000).
Dr. O'Sullivan is an adjunct senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, a consultant to the National Intelligence Council, and a strategic advisor to John Hess, the Chairman and CEO of Hess Corporation, an American independent oil and gas company. She is also a foreign affairs columnist for Bloomberg View as well as a member of the Council of Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission, and the Aspen Strategy Group. Dr. O’Sullivan serves as a member of the board of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard and a director on the board of TechnoServe, a non-profit organization bringing business solutions to help alleviate poverty.
She has been awarded the Defense Department's highest honor for civilians, the Distinguished Public Service Medal, and three times been awarded the State Department's Superior Honor Award. In 2008, Esquire Magazine named her one of the most influential people of the century.
Dr. O'Sullivan received a B.A. from Georgetown University, a masters of science in Economics and doctorate in Politics from Oxford University.
Nasser Nasser - AP Images
March 27, 2012
"Iraq Can Move Arab States to New Economic Focus"
Op-Ed, Bloomberg
By Meghan L. O'Sullivan, Jeane Kirkpatrick Professor of the Practice of International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School
The 23rd Arab League Summit is now under way in Baghdad. Unlike the 22 non-emergency summits that preceded it, this one will be worth watching, and for two reasons.
First, to the surprise of many, the Arab League has become an organization of consequence. In the wake of revolutions across the region, the league has commanded something of a leadership role. In Libya, it was instrumental in ushering in and legitimizing foreign intervention against Muammar Qaddafi’s regime. And on Syria, through its proposals for monitors and peacekeeping forces, the league has been the most active international organization seeking to end the violence Bashar al-Assad has unleashed on his citizens.
The other reason for paying special attention to this summit has to do with its host, Iraq. The last Arab League Summit held in Baghdad was in 1990, just months before Saddam Husseininvaded Kuwait. Since then, Iraq has effectively been out of the Arab fold -- on account of war, sanctions, occupation and sectarian strife. This week’s event marks a major milestone for Iraq and is the most tangible sign of its potential re- emergence as a regional player.
Muzaffar Salman - AP Photo
February 22, 2012
"Sanctions Alone Won’t Topple Syria’s Assad"
Op-Ed
By Meghan L. O'Sullivan, Jeane Kirkpatrick Professor of the Practice of International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School
On Feb. 24, the U.S., European nations, members of the Arab League and other sympathetic countries making up the newly established “Friends of Syria” group will gather in Tunisia for an emergency meeting on how to stem the bloodshed in Syria. Their deliberations are almost certain to involve calls for more crippling sanctions to bring about regime change and debates over providing military support to the fractured opposition groups inside the country.
Hadi Mizban
December 20, 2011
"Troops Are Gone but Iraq War Is Not ‘Over’"
Op-Ed, Bloomberg
By Meghan L. O'Sullivan, Jeane Kirkpatrick Professor of the Practice of International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School
While Americans have been welcoming the “end” of the war in Iraq over the past few days, a political crisis of serious proportions has been unfolding in Baghdad.
(AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
October 28, 2011
"The Problem With Obama's Decision to Leave Iraq"
Op-Ed, Foreign Affairs
By Meghan L. O'Sullivan, Jeane Kirkpatrick Professor of the Practice of International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School
In April 2008, Ryan Crocker, who was then the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, told Congress, "In the end, how we leave and what we leave behind will be more important than how we came." Given President Barack Obama's announcement last Friday that all U.S. troops will leave Iraq by the end of the year, it is more important than ever to answer Crocker's implicit question about what, exactly, Washington will be leaving in its wake.
(AP Photo/Nabil al-Jurani)
September 9, 2011
"Why U.S. troops should stay in Iraq"
Op-Ed, Washington Post
By Meghan L. O'Sullivan, Jeane Kirkpatrick Professor of the Practice of International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School
"As America looks back on this 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, the war in Iraq looms large — and usually not in a good way," writes Meghan O'Sullivan. "At best, it’s regarded as a distraction, a needless conflict that took America’s focus away from Afghanistan and al-Qaeda. At worst, the Iraq war is decried as a fiasco, the United States’ 'greatest strategic disaster,' as retired Gen. William Odom, the former National Security Agency director, once put it."
July 2011
"Iraqi Politics And Implications For Oil And Energy"
Paper
By Meghan L. O'Sullivan, Jeane Kirkpatrick Professor of the Practice of International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School
Iraq could be poised for a dramatic transformation in which it finally escapes the political and technical constraints that have kept it producing less than 4 percent of the world’s oil, writes Meghan L. O'Sullivan. Should Iraq meet its ambitions to bring nearly 10 million more barrels of oil on line by 2017, it would constitute the largest ever capacity increase in the history of the oil industry. Even half this much would represent a massive achievement.
AP Photo
April 1, 2011
Will Libya become Obama's Iraq?
Op-Ed, Washington Post
By Meghan L. O'Sullivan, Jeane Kirkpatrick Professor of the Practice of International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School
In making his case this past week for the use of force in Libya, President Obama sought to assure the American people that this intervention is prudent and wise, and that it bears no resemblance to the controversial and costly war in Iraq... Given the most obvious differences between Iraq and Libya — no ground troops in Libya and no U.N. resolution in Iraq — few will take issue with Obama's protestation. Yet, Obama's road in Libya may prove more similar to President George W. Bush's than it now appears.
AP Photo
March 7, 2010
"After Iraq's election, the real fight"
Op-Ed, Washington Post
By Meghan L. O'Sullivan, Jeane Kirkpatrick Professor of the Practice of International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School
Iraq is on much sounder footing today than it was in 2005 or 2006. Yet once again, after Sunday's parliamentary elections, the country is probably in store for long negotiations over who will share power in the new government -- a battle that could strain Iraq's fledgling political institutions and complicate the planned drawdown of U.S. forces.
AP Photo
July 21, 2009
"Issues Before Identity in Iraq"
Op-Ed, Washington Post
By Meghan L. O'Sullivan, Jeane Kirkpatrick Professor of the Practice of International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School
After six months of a stance perceived by many Iraqis as "hands off," the administration appears to have realized that political engagement is most important when a military presence is waning. Yet recent comments by Vice President Biden suggest that U.S. officials' mind-set toward Iraq could do as much harm as good.
Photo by Sharon Wilke
May 15, 2009
The Geopolitics of Energy Seminar Series
Media Feature
By Meghan L. O'Sullivan, Jeane Kirkpatrick Professor of the Practice of International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School
Understanding how energy shapes the grand strategies of China, Russia, India, Europe, Saudi Arabia, and others is vital in mapping out the contours of the future global order. These seminars are the basis for identifying possible new nodes of international conflict and cooperation, and deficiencies in existing international structures. The seminars also draw attention to geopolitical problems that could arise as the United States and other countries make energy more central in their plans, as well as well as highlight the geopolitical implications of possible shifts away from fossil fuels. Watch videos of the seminars online.
