2016 Hillary had a part in the Iran Nuclear Deal via Oman?
For Hillary Clinton and John Kerry, Divergent Paths to Iran Nuclear Talks
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/03/us/politics/for-hillary-clinton-and-john-kerry-divergent-paths-to-iran-nuclear-talks.html
Early in 2011, after a hectic visit to Yemen, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton landed in the tranquil Arab sultanate of Oman. She was there to talk to Sultan Qaboos bin Said about an idea one of his envoys first pitched to the State Department in the spring of 2009: that Oman serve as a conduit for secret nuclear talks between the United States and Iran.
Mrs. Clinton agreed to explore the proposal but was dubious that it would go anywhere. “Even under the best of circumstances,” she wrote later, “this was a long shot.” It would be 18 months before she took up the sultan on his offer and dispatched a team of diplomats to Oman to meet with the Iranians.
Mrs. Clinton, however, was not the only prominent American making discreet trips to Oman in those days. Senator John F. Kerry, then the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and later her successor as secretary of state, was holding his own meetings with Sultan Qaboos and his trusted emissary, a businessman named Salem ben Nasser al-Ismaily.
Mr. Kerry came away convinced that Oman could deliver Iranians who spoke for their top leaders, and he urged President Obama and Mrs. Clinton to open a back channel.
“Hillary and company were skeptical,” he said in an interview. The president, on the other hand, was intrigued by the prospect of an Omani channel, twice telephoning the sultan to ask him about it. “He was genuinely curious about trying to find an out-of-the-box approach to change the dynamic,” Mr. Kerry recalled.