US opted for war against Iran despite potential breakthrough in talks: Sullivan

Former US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan has stressed that the administration of President Donald Trump opted to conduct military aggression against Iran, despite a potential diplomatic breakthrough in the nuclear talks.

“Just a few days before we started bombing Iran, the Iranians put a proposal on the table in Geneva that went a long way towards resolving the nuclear issue,” he said while speaking at “The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart.”

According to his remarks, the Iranian proposal addressed key aspects of the peaceful nuclear program in a manner that could have resolved the longstanding dispute. However, the US ultimately opted a war and failed to capitalize on the diplomatic opening.

“My understanding is that our side, our negotiators, simply didn’t understand what they were being offered and they ignored it and decided to go ahead” and conduct the aggression against Iran, Sullivan said.

He cited “mismatch” between US official’s comments on the proposal and remarks by Omani mediators.

The US and Israel started a fresh round of aerial aggression on Iran on February 28, some eight months after they carried out unprovoked attacks on the country.

The attacks were launched as Iran and the US had held three rounds of indirect negotiations in the Omani capital of Muscat and the Swiss city of Geneva and planned to open technical talks in Vienna, Austria.

Iran began to swiftly retaliate against the strikes by launching barrages of missile and drone attacks on the Israeli-occupied territories as well as on US bases and interests in regional countries.

Sullivan was involved in negotiations with Iran under the administration of Barack Obama that led to the 2015 deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

During his first presidential term, Trump unilaterally withdrew the US from the nuclear deal and embarked on a confrontational policy against Iran.

Under the JCPOA, which was reached in July 2015 and came into force in January 2016, Iran had accepted, in good faith, certain limitations on its nuclear program in exchange for a degree of sanctions relief.

Upon taking office, Trump infamously called the nuclear agreement reached by his predecessor “the worst deal in history” and promised to strike a “better deal” that would also address other issues such as Iran's ballistic missile program and regional activities, issues seen in Iran as redlines.

Elsewhere in the interview, Sullivan stressed that the current administration has no strategy, noting that Trump withdrew from the 2015 deal without a plan B, “And now we’re dealing with the consequences of that vacuum.”

“President Trump’s approach to Iran has been defined by maximum pressure, but with a very unclear endgame. The logic is: you choke the economy until they come to the table. But the problem we’re seeing is that Iran has a strategy—and I’ll give them credit, it is coherent and clear,” Su

“Their strategy is to wait out the pressure… until they can get sanctions relief.”

“So, you have a US administration applying pressure without a clear diplomatic off-ramp, facing off” against Iran “that has learned to survive on resilience, he said, adding that such a policy by the US could result in conflict.

As the US launched two acts of aggression against Iran while negotiations were underway, the former adviser noted that “right now, there is no trust,” noting that “there are no secret talks that I’m aware of.”

He also downplayed the impact of Trump’s maximum pressure campaign and military threats against the stance of the resilient Islamic Republic.

“The current administration’s approach is to try to force Iran to the table through economic collapse and military threat. But if we’ve learned anything over the last 45 years, it’s that you cannot bomb your way to a diplomatic solution, and you cannot sanction your way to a nuclear deal.”

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