|
 Obama was not referring to his public negotiating team, led by
senior State Department official Wendy Sherman, nor even to his
secretary of state, John Kerry, who was soon to sweep in from Tel
Aviv to join the early November discussions in Geneva.
Rather, White House chief of staff Denis McDonough recalled, Obama
was talking about a secret group led by Bill Burns, Kerry's
discreet, disciplined and self-effacing deputy.
At times using U.S. military aircraft, hotel side entrances and
service elevators to keep his role under wraps, Burns undertook
arguably the most sensitive diplomatic mission of Obama's
presidency: secret talks with Iran to persuade it to curb its
nuclear program.
In picking Burns, seen by his peers as a leading U.S. diplomat of
his generation, Obama gave the envoy, who speaks Arabic, French and
Russian, a chance to ease more than 30 years of estrangement between
the United States and Iran.
If it ensures Tehran does not build a nuclear bomb, the Iran deal
could stand as the capstone to Burns' 31-year diplomatic career.
If it fails, it could bring Israel or the United States closer to a
military strike on Iran and fuel criticism that Washington
squandered its best opportunity for a peaceful solution by appeasing
Iran rather than pressuring it further.
Current and former U.S. officials, including four former secretaries
of state, describe Burns as well suited to dealing with the
Iranians, with the sensitivity to see Tehran's perspective and the
tenacity not to compromise U.S. interests.
"He is steady, reliable, intelligent, disciplined and — in his
understated way — persuasive," said former U.S. Secretary of State
Henry Kissinger.
"I like to hear his judgments and can learn from them," Kissinger
told Reuters. "That's not something I volunteer very often."
He said he saw Burns' deft touch in the discreet way the diplomat,
then ambassador to Russia, reported private conversations between
Kissinger and Russian President Vladimir Putin back to Washington.
"I wanted to make sure they were not in the cable traffic lest they
leak," Kissinger said. "He handled that with great skill."
Even those who square off across the table speak well of Burns.
He "knows Iran very well and also understands Iran's culture,
expectations and position in the region," said a senior Iranian
official, speaking on condition of anonymity. "Sometimes during the
talks Iranian negotiators get angry and pressure him, but he remains
calm and patient."
BUREAUCRATIC SKIRMISHES
Burns, 57, who has a lanky frame that he used to good effect on the
basketball court in his youth, has executed the rarest of Washington
careers. He has taken on politically perilous assignments such as
heading the State Department's Middle East shop during the 2003 U.S.
invasion of Iraq, all without a hint of personal failure or personal
controversy.
Running the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, which handles Middle
East policy, from 2001-2005 made him a participant in the epic
struggles between the State and Defense Departments over the war and
its aftermath — battles the Pentagon largely won.
Burns, who declined to be interviewed for this article, is no
stranger to bureaucratic infighting, though colleagues sometimes
conduct skirmishes on his behalf. "If an elbow has to be thrown,
usually it'll be thrown by someone else for him," said one U.S.
official.
In recent years, officials say, Burns has acted as liaison between
the Obama White House, which directs foreign policy with a firm
hand, and the State Department, where mid-level officials sometimes
complain of being kept in the dark.
Over the past nine months, Burns, along with Jake Sullivan, Vice
President Joe Biden's national security adviser, met secretly with
Iranian officials five times in Oman and Switzerland.
Their assignment became public only when Tehran and six major powers
reached a Nov. 24 agreement for Iran to constrain its nuclear
program for six months in exchange for sanctions relief that
Washington estimates at $7 billion.
Critics have targeted the deal rather than Burns. Some argue that
the sanctions relief is worth more than the White House says, and
will undercut U.S. economic leverage on Iran.
Former President George W. Bush was skeptical of talking directly
about the nuclear issue with Iran. But in 2008, his final year in
office, Bush sent Burns to meet with the Iranians, joining envoys
from Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia.
[to top of second column] |
"There was some skepticism in some quarters of the administration,"
former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told Reuters. "When I
said to the president, 'Well it's going to be Bill Burns,' he said:
'He'll be able to handle it.'" Asked if Burns had any faults, Rice
could only think of one: a demeanor so low-key that he sometimes
does not generate headlines that could advance an administration's
agenda.
His style is in sharp contrast to that of another top diplomat of
the era, the late Richard Holbrooke, known for his outspokenness and
self-promotion.
"I sometimes think that if Bill were more demonstrative publicly, it
could be helpful," Rice said. "It takes a little pressure off the
secretary. But Bill is just so understated that that doesn't
happen."
"A CAPACIOUS MIND"
Burns' understated style was evident as an honors student at
Philadelphia's LaSalle University, which his father, an Army general
and former head of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency,
also attended.
"Bill would sit on the right side, near the back of the room, with
his head looking down at the floor, his hands clasped between his
knees, and I don't think he ever took a note," said George Stow, who
teaches history at LaSalle. "I thought, oh, this boy's in trouble
come the first exam."
"Well, I opened the blue book for the first exam and it was
astounding. It was page after page after page and filled with
references and quotations from books and sources that I had never
mentioned," he added, saying Burns had "a capacious mind."
Stow later sponsored Burns for a Marshall Scholarship, to study in
Britain. The idea came from the professors, Stow said. "Bill would
never, if I may use such a term, be that pushy."
Despite the absence of obvious self-promotion, Burns has had an
almost gilded career, spent more in Washington than abroad.
A string of staff jobs that are coveted, if exhausting, plums, put
Burns at the right hand of officials such as Colin Powell, President
Ronald Reagan's national security adviser, and Warren Christopher
and Madeleine Albright when they were secretaries of state.
Powell said Burns had a soft-spoken confidence as a young man and
offered unvarnished advice behind closed doors.
"I don't have people around me who pull their punches. I have people
around me who will tell me when I have got no clothes on," Powell
told Reuters.
Richard Armitage, Powell's deputy secretary of state, said Burns was
part of a State Department leadership team that did not so much
oppose the 2003 Iraq invasion, as favored a less unilateral approach
to ousting dictator Saddam Hussein.
"Was he unhappy? Yes. We were all unhappy with the way we were going
to war," Armitage said, adding he, Powell and Burns favored
obtaining a second U.N. Security Council resolution to explicitly
authorize the use of force in Iraq.
While known for his courtesy, Burns is not shy about advocating for
his preferred policies.
Jim Jeffrey, Bush's deputy national security adviser, said Burns had
swum against the tide in a skeptical Republican administration to
make the case for engaging Tehran.
"He pushed very hard in 2008 to have contact with the Iranians,"
making his case through then Secretary of State Rice and informally
lobbying the national security council staff, Jeffrey said.
Those 2008 dealings with the Iranians helped pave the way to the
November nuclear deal, Jeffrey said.
"This was one of the first steps that laid the groundwork for what
we have today, and laid the groundwork for the Iranian sympathy for
and trust in Bill Burns."
(Additional reporting by Parisa Hafezi in Ankara and by Warren
Strobel in Washington; editing by Warren Strobel, Martin Howell and
Tim Dobbyn)
[© 2014 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2014 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
 |
