[Peace-discuss] Obama adds another hack

[C. G. Estabrook]

http://washingtonindependent.com/31275/state-department-we-will-not-tell-you-what-dennis-ross-will-be-doing

	State Department: We Will Not Tell You What Dennis Ross Will Be Doing!
	By SPENCER ACKERMAN 2/24/09 4:00 PM

Earlier today I wrote that Dennis Ross was finally getting made an Obama
administration “envoy” to… uh… a country with a name that rhymes with Gee-Dan.
(Or, if you’re fancy, Gee-DAWN.) Not so, says acting State Department spokesman
Robert Wood! But what will his job actually be, then? Hard to say. You really
have to read the full transcript from today’s State press briefing for the full
measure of insanity over State’s unwillingness to explain what Ross will be doing.

"Let me be clear, he’s not an envoy. He will not be negotiating. He’ll be
working on regional issues. He will not be – in terms of negotiating, will not
be involved in the peace process. But again, he is going to be advising the
Secretary on long-term strategic issues across the region."

Wood doesn’t even want to tell reporters which countries fall under the
portfolio of the Special Advisor to the Secretary of State for The Gulf and
Southwest Asia. (”I just – I don’t have the list to run off – you know, right
off the top of my head here.”) While Ross won’t be negotiating, he will “meet
with the leaders in the region” — only Wood won’t say what the region entails
and when asked, Wood said:

"Look, it’s more – he’s going to be providing advice to the Secretary on a
number of regional issues, and I would not try to limit Dennis’s advice to, you
know, just those regions. He may have other – you know, he may have advice that
he wants to give the Secretary on other issues. I don’t think we’re trying to
narrow it here."

In other words, Dennis Ross is everywhere and nowhere, the Keyser Soze of the
State Department. You could read the transcript and conclude that Ross is
all-powerful, advising Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton — who basically ended a
photo op today when a reporter asked about Ross — on all manner of issues. Or
you could read it and conclude that Ross met a welter of bureaucratic resistance
at the State Department to the prospect of him getting an envoyship, and Clinton
required a face-saving way of shunting him aside. My very-helpful guess is that
Ross’s role remains unsettled, at least until he and Richard Holbrooke meet in
the Octagon.


C. G. Estabrook wrote:
> [I spoke too soon -- in speculating about a possible diplomatic revolution in
> the Mideast -- when I said that Obama had avoided employing the awful
> pro-Israel hack Dennis Ross.  Maybe this was the (internal) USG price for
> appointing former ambassador to Saudi Arabia Charles W. Freeman to head the
> National Intelligence Council.  --CGE]
> 
> Ross joins Obama team in Iran-related capacity By Ron Kampeas · February 23,
> 2009
> 
> WASHINGTON (JTA) -- Dennis Ross joined the Obama administration in a 
> coordinating role on policy regarding Iran and its neighbors.
> 
> Ross was named special adviser to the secretary of state for the Gulf and
> Southwest Asia.
> 
> "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," said a
> statement late Monday from Robert Wood, the spokesman for Secretary of State
> Hillary Rodham Clinton. "In this area, we must strive to build support for
> U.S. goals and policies. To be successful, we will need to be able to
> integrate our policy development and implementation across a broad range of
> offices and senior officials in the State Department, and in his role as
> Special Advisor to the Secretary, Ambassador Ross will be asked to play that
> role."
> 
> The geographical designations and the reference to "two wars" suggest that
> Ross will focus on Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan -- but not necessarily on
> Israel-area crises, his area of expertise when he was top Middle East
> negotiator in the first Bush and the Clinton administrations.
> 
> President Obama already appointed former U.S. Sen. George Mitchell as an 
> envoy to the Israel-related Middle East peace process.
> 
> Ross, the statement said, "will provide to the Secretary and senior State
> Department officials strategic advice and perspective on the region; offer
> assessments and also act to ensure effective policy integration throughout
> the region; coordinate with senior officials in the development and
> formulation of new policy approaches; and participate, at the request of the
> Secretary, in inter-agency activities related to the region."
> 
> During the campaign, Ross outlined what he said was a "sticks-then-carrots"
> approach to engaging Iran: rallying the international community to tighten
> sanctions before offering incentives to have the Islamic Republic stand down
> from its suspected nuclear weapons program.
> 
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