Nice article on the secret early days of getting the Iran deal

[karynnj]

2. Same here

It matches with other things that have been said over time. Particularly it matches what we always knew as the differences between Obama and Clinton. It is interesting that it was Tom Donilon who Kerry worked with on this. He had many kind words for Kerry when he was named diplomat of the year by foreign policy.

I credit HRC for JUST one thing on the Iran deal, other than the sanctions - and that was that she backed it after the deal was made. I do not think she helped get the votes in favor of it, BUT had she been against it or ambivalent, it would likely have allowed enough Democrats to vote against it to kill it.

It is interesting that the anonymous "people in the WH" were concerned that Kerry could over promise. In the first place, it is pretty obvious that he is a very careful negotiator and would not risk something like that because it would lead to no deal -- as the first step even for an outline of a deal would be to get internal approval. Not to mention, HILLARY's own people suggest that she made the decision (that really only the President could make) to allow low level enrichment in the various articles that describe how the deal stemmed from her, Jake Sullivan's and William Burns' work.

It appears from the new details in this article, that she was dragging her SoS feet as much as possible - waiting 18 months to even take up an opportunity to sent people to talk! This is equivalent to suggesting that her "hunting down the Chinese" was key to the US/China pact - rather than that it nearly precluded ANY diplomacy on that issue.

Let's hope she is better at being President than she is at diplomacy!