Dennis Ross Appointed Special Envoy to West Asia & the Gulf

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Thanks to AbuBadia
[EPJ]

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" This is a bad development for peace and accommodation in the Gulf. Dennis Ross will not be received well by the Iranian or the Arabs in the Gulf.

His involvement with Palestine in which he showed clear bias to Israel will not fair well. The development will be bad for the Iraq policy reassessment as well.Since he left his post with Palestinian-Israel negotiations he has been working with a pro-Israeli institute, from Al-Ahram weekly, 19-25 Feb 2009:"

He was a co-founder of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP ), which in turn is closely associated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the main striking force of the Israeli lobby in America."

Also from Juan Cole, Feb 5, 2009:"Meanwhile, it is rumored that among the main shapers of Obama's Iran policy will be Dennis Ross, the head of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, the think tank of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

During Ross's tenure there, the WINEP website carried a call to bomb Iran; a paper arguing that nothing bad would happen if the US did bomb Iran; and it listed as a WINEP associate Daniel Pipes, who spent most of his waking hours during the past year decrying Barack Obama as a stealth Muslim and an apostate (which was it?) and who has repeatedly said racist things about Muslims.

Turning Iran policy over to the Israel lobbies, the major agitators for a US war on Iran, is a very bad idea, and if this goes forward Obama will be signalling that there will not in fact be a new US-Iran relationship."
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The Washington Post article:Veteran Mideast Envoy Ross Named to Advise Clinton on Iran Strategy

By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, February 24, 2009; A04

Dennis Ross, a longtime diplomatic troubleshooter, has been appointed as a special adviser to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, with responsibility for developing a strategy for engaging Iran.

The State Department notice of his appointment issued late last night did not mention Iran, and his official title is vague: adviser to the secretary of state for the Gulf and Southwest Asia. State Department officials said the title is a euphemism for Iran and issues affected by Iran's actions; it was kept obscure because Washington has not had diplomatic relations with Tehran since shortly after the Iranian revolution three decades ago.

President Obama has said he would like to engage with Iran and break through the years of antagonism between the two countries in an effort to stem Tehran's support of terrorism and pursuit of a nuclear weapon.

Ross "will provide to the Secretary and senior State Department officials strategic advice and perspective on the region" and "coordinate with senior officials in the development and formulation of new policy approaches," State Department spokesman Robert A. Wood said in a statement.

The statement noted that "this is a region in which America is fighting two wars and facing challenges of ongoing conflict, terror, proliferation, access to energy, economic development and strengthening democracy and the rule of law."

Read the rest on-linehttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-n/content/article/2009/02/23/AR2009022302674.html "


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