Those worried about the United States being sucked into a new military confrontation under the Trump administration are looking in the wrong direction, Jake Sullivan believes.
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"While all eyes have been on North Korea as a place where we could end up in a shooting match of sorts, I actually think Iran is a more likely scenario," the US foreign policy guru tells Fairfax Media.
"Do I have a real concern about whether this president with his temperament could through a combination of decisions end up getting us into a conflict with Iran? I do. And that is not in the US national interest, it's not in the interests of regional stability and it's something that I think bears close watching."
Sullivan, at just 40, was tipped to have been either National Security Adviser or White House chief of staff to Hillary Clinton had she succeeded in becoming president. He was a key aide to her as Secretary of State, and also served as national security adviser to Vice-President Joe Biden.
He has just arrived in Australia for a speaking tour as the Lowy Institute's 2017 international distinguished fellow and is watching with intense interest Donald Trump's early international forays as president.
Sullivan believes the US has taken some "pretty significant backward steps" since Mr Trump took office, citing not just mis-steps on Iran but the decision to withdraw from the Paris climate accord and the "casting of doubt on the sanctity" of America's commitment to NATO.
China policy, too, appears to be overly driven by the rogue North Korean regime's actions, Sullivan believes.
"My concern is that America's Asia policy in the first few months of the Trump administration has mostly been a North Korea policy and that, in effect, we have implicitly or otherwise made a deal with the Chinese that if they provide us some assistance on the North Korea issue, that we will take our foot off the gas when it comes to other aspects of their behaviour in the Asia-Pacific."
"That is the biggest geopolitical project in the years ahead, and I don't think this administration has its eye on the ball right now."
Sullivan describes himself as coming from "that strain of American foreign policy that blends principles and pragmatism". He shares with his hero, the post-war president Harry Truman, a conviction that "the US is a force for good at the best of times and we need to be engaged with the world".
Russian attempts to "undermine Western democratic institutions" are something that the US and the West "need to organise ourselves to effectively push back on," he warns. "It's going to require clear-eyed and hard-headed policy and right now instead what we have coming out of the White House is a view that basically ignores these dynamics, if not worse."
He says "hard questions" need to be asked about "people around Trump making common cause with the Russians in the election campaign last year". But he says the US is "resilient enough" to bounce back from the turmoil currently engulfing Washington.
Sullivan remains in touch with Clinton and says that after her "period of walking in the woods", she has engaged with politics again via a new political action committee to boost progressive causes.
"I don't anticipate in any way, shape or form that she would end up back in politics, but rather, she will be looking for new voices and faces," he says. "Trump's election is having a very big galvanising effect on younger people thinking about running for office or Congress."
