Meghan L. O'Sullivan is a former deputy national security adviser on Iraq and Afghanistan and now a lecturer and senior fellow at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/experts/1575/meghan_osullivan.html

Personal

O'Sullivan grew up in Lexington, Massachusetts

Lexington, Massachusetts

Lexington is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 31,399 at the 2010 census. This town is famous for being the site of the first shot of the American Revolution, in the Battle of Lexington on April 19, 1775.- History :...

.

She received her bachelor's degree from Georgetown University

Georgetown University

Georgetown University is a private, Jesuit, research university whose main campus is in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded in 1789, it is the oldest Catholic university in the United States...

 in 1991. O'Sullivan later received her master's degree in economics and her D.Phil. (Ph.D.) in politics from the University of Oxford

University of Oxford

The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...

. Her doctoral dissertation was about the Sri Lankan Civil War

Sri Lankan civil war

The Sri Lankan Civil War was a conflict fought on the island of Sri Lanka. Beginning on July 23, 1983, there was an on-and-off insurgency against the government by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam , a separatist militant organization which fought to create an independent Tamil state named Tamil...

 

Career

O'Sullivan was an aide to Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Daniel Patrick "Pat" Moynihan was an American politician and sociologist. A member of the Democratic Party, he was first elected to the United States Senate for New York in 1976, and was re-elected three times . He declined to run for re-election in 2000...

, and a fellow at the Brookings Institution

Brookings Institution

The Brookings Institution is a nonprofit public policy organization based in Washington, D.C., in the United States. One of Washington's oldest think tanks, Brookings conducts research and education in the social sciences, primarily in economics, metropolitan policy, governance, foreign policy, and...

 under Richard N. Haass.

O'Sullivan has also served in the Office of Policy Planning at the State Department

United States Department of State

The United States Department of State , is the United States federal executive department responsible for international relations of the United States, equivalent to the foreign ministries of other countries...

, where she assisted Colin Powell

Colin Powell

Colin Luther Powell is an American statesman and a retired four-star general in the United States Army. He was the 65th United States Secretary of State, serving under President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2005. He was the first African American to serve in that position. During his military...

 in developing the smart sanctions policy proposal; as an assistant to Paul Bremer in the Coalition Provisional Authority

Coalition Provisional Authority

The Coalition Provisional Authority was established as a transitional government following the invasion of Iraq by the United States and its allies, members of the Multi-National Force – Iraq which was formed to oust the government of Saddam Hussein in 2003...

 subsequent to the 2003 invasion of Iraq

2003 invasion of Iraq

The 2003 invasion of Iraq , was the start of the conflict known as the Iraq War, or Operation Iraqi Freedom, in which a combined force of troops from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Poland invaded Iraq and toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein in 21 days of major combat operations...

; and as Senior Director for Iraq at the National Security Council

United States National Security Council

The White House National Security Council in the United States is the principal forum used by the President of the United States for considering national security and foreign policy matters with his senior national security advisors and Cabinet officials and is part of the Executive Office of the...

. O'Sullivan last position at the White House was as the Special Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for Iraq and Afghanistan

Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for Iraq and Afghanistan

The Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for Iraq and Afghanistan, also known by the informal expression War Czar, is a position the George W...

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During her time in Iraq, O'Sullivan was involved with many key decisions on the political front, including helping 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.
With Stephen Hadley, she is also credited as being one of the original advocates in the White House of the "surge" strategy of 2007

In 2003 Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told Jay Garner that he could not keep her on in Iraq, though Rumsfeld later relented.http://www.nationalreview.com/mowbray/mowbray060903.asp On May 31, 2007, President Bush announced that Meghan 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." On September 15, Meghan left the White House and began teaching at Harvard three days later.

O'Sullivan was the point person in charge of the Afghan war for the White House.

Published works

• Shrewd Sanctions: Statecraft and State Sponsors of Terrorism, Brookings Institution Press (2003), ISBN 0-8157-0601-4.

• Honey and Vinegar: Incentives, Sanctions, and Foreign Policy, edited with Richard N. Haass, Brookings Institution Press (2000), ISBN 0-8157-3355-0. [edit] By Meghan L. O'Sullivan
• Sanctioning 'Rogue' States: A Strategy in Decline?, Harvard International Review, Summer 2000.

• "Terms of Engagement: Alternatives to Punitive Policies" with Richard N. Haass, Survival, 42:2 (Summer 2000), The International Institute for Strategic Studies.

• "Iraq: Time for a Modified Approach", Brookings Institution (IraqWatch), February 2001.

• "Sanctions and U.S. Foreign Policy", with Raymond Tanter, Washington Institute for Near East Policy, March 13, 2001.

• "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.

External links

• O'Sullivan's bio at Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center
• White House Bio of Meghan O'Sullivan
• A bibliography of Meghan L. O'Sullivan works at unjobs.org
• Ask the White House - Q&A with Meghan O'Sullivan on the situation in Iraq - December 14, 2005
• The Washingtonian's profile of O'Sullivan in their article "The List of Powerful Women to Watch," by Kim Forrest, June, 2006
• Interview with Charlie Rose, 2 May 2008