The matchless Nelson Report has updated the news about the prospective appointment of Dennis Ross as Special Envoy for Iran, and the update is even more concerning than the original report. Chris Nelson apparently got hold of an internal memo from the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) in which its director, Robert Satloff, outlines Ross’ much-expanded job description. It reads as if Ross will be a sort of Middle East “czar”. Here it is, as quoted in the Report:
To: Members of the Board of Trustees
From: Chairman Fred Lafer, President Howard Berkowitz, and Executive
Director Robert Satloff
Re: Ambassador Dennis Ross to Join Obama AdministrationWe are delighted to share the news that Ambassador Dennis Ross, counselor and Ziegler Distinguished Fellow at The Washington Institute, has accepted an invitation to join the Obama administration as ambassador-at-large and senior advisor to Secretary of State-designate Hillary Clinton.
In that seventh-floor job, designed especially for him, Ambassador Ross
will be the secretary’s top advisor on a wide range of Middle East issues,
from the Arab-Israeli peace process to Iran. Ambassador Ross will not
reprise his previous role as special Arab-Israeli peace envoy, a post that
will be held by someone else; rather he will be working closely with both
the special envoy and the secretary. Ambassador Ross is expected to take
his post immediately after inauguration.We know you share our pride in Ambassador Ross’s achievements, which
reflect not only his outstanding contribution to U.S. foreign policy, but
also the Institute’s unique role in supporting those who can advance peace
and security in the Middle East.
Needless to say, if the memo is genuine (and I have no doubt that it is) and accurate, Ross’ appointment marks a major setback for those who had hoped that Obama might bring some fresh thinking to Middle East policy, particularly vis-a-vis Iran and Israel-Palestine.
P.S. Haass has vigorously denied that he has been offered the Israel-Palestinian portfolio, although I’ve heard the denials are not entirely persuasive. If Haass indeed does not get it, then Dan Kurtzer, who served as a close adviser to Obama during the campaign, would be considered the most likely choice at this point, although Martin Indyk would, I imagine, be far more compatible with Ross. Indeed, neither Kurtzer nor Haass may find the job particularly inviting if they have to report through Ross to Clinton and the White House.
Paul
January 8, 2009 @ 2:44 am
Appointing extremely anti-Iran Dennis Ross as ‘Special Envoy to Iran’ is like appointing a pedophile as kindergarten teacher.
Mike in St. Lucia
January 8, 2009 @ 6:38 am
Haas? Dennis Ross? Very scary indeed! The Zionist takeover is complete! These are just the final nails in the coffin that is the United States. The U.S. is already on its deathbed, and all Obama can do is preside over its funeral. Most likely, there’s 1 year left, 2 at the most.
Herman Schmidt
January 8, 2009 @ 7:48 am
Another in your face move for those who early on supported Obama because they wanted to believe he would be different, i.e. not a tool of the Zionists AKA neocons. Neocons, of course, is a much safer word, more removed so as to deflect accusations of anti-semitism. Very disheartening but the way it is. Watching my Senator Cardin on the Senate floor defending the murdering of Palestinians and joined by other shouts of amen tells the story of our foreign policy. You know, when you think back to the murder of our sailors on the Liberty and how that was covered up, you realize that nothing under present conditions will make our political class place national interest above that of Israel’s interests. The grand prize to anyone who figures out how to recapture our foreign policy.
el sid
January 8, 2009 @ 10:07 am
Mike: wrong. America’s finished NOW! Buy a boat.
Max L. Cadenhead
January 8, 2009 @ 10:54 am
Obama’s approach to the Middle East problems is approaching the bizarre. It was the hope of a huge number of his supporters, (enough to make him a winner), that he would free the United States from its slavish support of anything and everything Israel wants to do. Obviously, we were all hoodwinked by this apparently smoothtalking con artist. From Clinton to Ross, he has appointed Neo-Cons as his point persons in this troubled area. What he evidently fails to realize is that Israel is a failed state…a state, even after they’ve put in power a Quisling like Mamoud Abbas, do not know how to avoid a policy that is a running sore of murder, mayhem, war criminality, and genocide towards the Palestenians. Amazing. Like abused children, the Israelis seem to have no mentors except their abusers, the Nazis, whose memory they obviously worship . What a travesty! Like the Evangelicals and most of the Southern Baptists, who are accessories to muder before the fact in the Rape of Iraq, Obama has taken the twenty pieces of silver from AIPAC and has betrayed his trust.
Gera Rosy
January 8, 2009 @ 11:07 am
Mike nearly nailed it (forgive the pun). The Zionist takeover is not yet complete. There are more appointments every day and a few more shocks to come. The US may not be on its deathbed, but is probably terminal. And as for Obama, he may appear to be presiding, but in reality he is simply obeying orders from his Israeli-Zionist-Jewish masters.
Hide Behind
January 8, 2009 @ 11:49 am
What difference is there between US neo-con and a neo-liberal to those peoples in world they choose to focus their attention upon?
The neocon is more open, direct and pragmatic, looks em in the eye, and kills them outright if they disagree, does the job and moves on to his next chosen victim.
While the neo-liberal smiles, likes to hide behind Diplomacy, Democracy and Goodwill and drags many others between themselves and their objects of attentionto hide behind, as they smilingly and quietly from behind those front men, kills them, and then hollers, “We regret the unfortunate demise of those we were trying to help.”
It amounts to excuses and honesty, one party wags the tail while the other unleashes the dog, but to the victims of US policy the results are much the same, it is their blood that is spilled, their cultures and futures are eaten by US insatiable greed and need for pwoer.
june cassidy
January 8, 2009 @ 11:58 am
dennis ross has consistenly lied to the American public via Fox News with Brit Hume. He is Israel’s representative at the State Dept. This is the worst appointment for the American public. He should be investigated for his Israeli connections!
Vera Beaudin Saeedpour
January 8, 2009 @ 2:07 pm
The Talented Mr. Obama fooled a majority of Americans from the outset and they have yet to discover the obvious. The madding crowd failed to notice Barack Obama reclaiming the name of the father who deserted him when he was but two years old, contemptuous of the feelings of his mother and grandmother who really raised him. They called him Barry. How must they have felt when he did that? He further denigrated his grandmother when, in his famous “race” speech he memorialized her attitude toward blacks as that of “a typical white person.” In the same speech he included a totally gratuitous line exonerating Israel and blaming Islamic extremism for all of the violence in the Middle East. Yet the pundits compared that speech with those of Thomas Jefferson.
When the gravely ill grandmother he routinely credits with having made him what he is, was dying, Obama managed to take a mere 22 hours from his campaign to visit her in Hawaii. He told the press she might not live to November 4th and he wanted to be with her while she was still “lucid.” He left her to die with only his half sister by her side. Obama routinely insists that his grandmother always stood by him. Clearly he didn’t stand by her. He had more important things on his mind: his presidential ambitions. So much for his lucidity. And so much for his priorities.
And yet the content of his character didn’t inhibit the New York Times from running two articles on his bedside visit, the one titled “Obama Makes Visit to a Most Beloved Supporter,” and the other, “Obama Takes Time for a Woman Dear to Him.” And TIME carried a similar expression of misplaced sympathy titled “Obama’s Hawaii Trip: Family Comes First.”
Nothing these days surprises me. During the primary, I watched his televised speech to an audience of women, more than a few of college age. When Obama paused to blow his nose, they screamed with delight and admiration. It was as if he had just parted the Red Sea. Why should anyone be surprised that he has chosen a Zionist zealot as his special envoy to Iran? He knows where his bread is buttered.
I don’t blame Obama. He is what he is–a seller. I blame the buyers, particularly those who call themselves journalists, pundits and academics. And I worry about their lucidity. And I worry about the content of their character.
Farhat
January 8, 2009 @ 3:44 pm
Counted days for american… Wait and c wat obama gonna do with ur country. Sorry not obama but neocons behind obama. They will hurt america more than they gonna heart middle east or iran.
DonT
January 8, 2009 @ 4:47 pm
We’re cooked. There was no choice. mcCain would have been the same thing. pray for the success of Ron Paul.
Claudia
January 8, 2009 @ 5:03 pm
I am SO not surprised, and SO disappointed.
Mike: a boat to where…? :-(
William Fuller
January 8, 2009 @ 6:04 pm
The cowardice of the American Congress is disgraceful and shameful. Never have so many self-serving, cowardly, lick-spittle traitors surrendered their country, so readily, to so small, so pernicious, so arrogantly self-centered a dependent country. It pains me to say this, but Israel is a pariah country, a brutal, self-satisfied country ruled by religious fanatics far more dangerous than and any Muslim extremist.
William
gordon
January 8, 2009 @ 6:14 pm
Amazing times : like watching history in slow motion. When the precursors of the neocons took over Russia, in the guise of communism, they ran it into the ground before the final looting just before it collapsed.
Currently we have the Wall Street looting going on quite blatantly while any discernible foreign “policy” has been handed over to the neocons who appear to be going for shit or bust – as though there is nothing to lose from being hated by the rest of the world. And perhaps from some perspectives there is nothing to lose. Certainly the money wasted on new ever-expanding wars will be lent by Wall Street and, if of sufficient scale, it should replenish their coffers nicely.
Who knows the end result. It will not be pleasant. But since none of it will be reported in the mainstream press the American public will remain unaware until the bitter end.
LeaNder
January 8, 2009 @ 6:14 pm
So Kurtzer could be hindered the way it happened before, if I remember correctly?
It’s Daniel C. Kurtzer and you heard it here first
LeaNder
January 8, 2009 @ 6:47 pm
Dear fellow Jim Lobe friends: Much resentment here? If “the Lobby” is as powerful as all of you seem to agree, wouldn’t it be necessary to act extra carefully? Wouldn’t you need to first appease them, so they do not use their power against everything you do?
I decided to side with the cockeyed optimist, completely against my usual pessimist strain: The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Mind you only a small move away from Bush & his court, would completely satisfy me. I didn’t expect more. A state is a sluggish machinery, resistant to fast change, I guess. Remembering the vicious anti-Obama campaign, again: He better is very, very careful.
Kraut
mark hearne
January 8, 2009 @ 7:24 pm
Unfortunately the Germans didnt stop being Nazis until their leaders were hanged. I fear the Isreali Nazis will have same end but not before lots more people are murdered.
I think the whole world is waiting to see which way Obama will jump. We hope and pray he restores Americas standing in the world by really addressing human rights issues and democracy and not become a complete nutjob continuing failed and foolish policies. Charges should be issued against all violations and violators of human rights and unfortunatly for Obama this means arresting a few senior Isrealis for war crimes.
With all their surveillance kit – supplied by the US it should be relatively easy to get convictions.
trisha
January 8, 2009 @ 9:25 pm
Aw, come on! When the economy is crashing at home, start another war!
Jon Harrison
January 8, 2009 @ 9:34 pm
Exactly. Why not co-opt some of those who would otherwise oppose you?Why must we conclude that nothing will change with this administration, based on a couple of appointments? Mind you, I’ve never thought that Obama would do the things necessary to rearrange our Mideast policy along rational lines. No doubt about it, the Lobby remains powerful; we aren’t yet at a point where a majority of Americans see the light. And we may never get there. But let’s not despair when the new administration hasn’t even taken office.
Amazing how the story of the Liberty has been buried all these years. Bamford’s book has the best, most comprehensive account, but how many people have read it? And of course the NYT reviewer made a point of taking issue with this one aspect of the book, while praising the rest of it. I wrote about the Liberty in passing last year, and sure enough indignant readers wrote in to the magazine protesting that I was slandering Israel.
juno
January 9, 2009 @ 4:52 pm
Perhaps, just perhaps the idea is to put those people who would most oppose the direction Obama wants to go, to put them right under his nose where he can direct and steer them towards the conclusions he desires. It may be a brilliant move intended to completely disarm the opposition.
scott
January 11, 2009 @ 12:46 pm
Juno, all you have is hope beyond hope. As we used to say, “Poop in one hand and hope with the other, and see which hand fills up first.”
Breaking: Ross not envoy to Iran « niacINsight
February 3, 2009 @ 10:41 am
[...] that to the barrage of criticism Ross has received in the media and the blogosphere for his hardline stance on [...]