Dennis Ross To Move To NSC: U.S. Officials

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration's pointman on Iran is moving from the State Department to the White House to better coordinate inter-agency policy on the Persian Gulf region, U.S. officials said Monday.

Dennis Ross, who is in charge of formulating President Barack Obama's outreach to Iran as special adviser for the Gulf and Southwest Asia, will take a similar position at the National Security Council, the officials said. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because details of the switch have not yet been finalized.

The White House and State Department declined to comment on the matter but denied an Israeli newspaper report that Ross was being removed from his job. Ross worked on the Middle East peace process for the administrations of former Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton.

Comments

[alexa07]

Why would the Obama adm. expect the Iranians to want to talk to someone who has devoted himself 100% exclusively to furthering the Israelis' occupation with its odious squatter politics as well as recently publishing a book which advocates for attacking Iran? No wonder they are refusing. President Obama needs to find someone who has clean hands. Ross doesn't.

[courtb]

Wow guys. Just wow.

You do realize that the current policy of trying to talk to Iran...all of Obama's mideast policies of talking to everyone...that comes from Ross.

[Kache]

I think what this really signals is that Obama is preparing for a new, and different, dialog with Iran. No matter how the election turns out, our dialog will be different, and a change of faces Iranians have been dealing with, and a shakeup of the pecking order in our own staff is something to be expected. we could be trying to read way more from the tea leaves than is really there and missing the fact that we're no longer drinking tea from the cup but something very different.

[UNCLEJOE]

Every time I open my computer I see Obama hiring the wrong executives for the wrong reasons. I never thought I would see a resurgence of the Republican party's power considering the corruption and devastation that the Bush Administration has weakened us economically, politically and bankrupt us with his personal wars, but every day Obama is turning staunch democrats like me away from the party by his following policies and appointing men to crucial government posts that are antithetical to all Democratic agendas and backsliding on his promises as a candidate that won us over to vote for him.

I do not think it is too early to start looking for a candidate to replace Obama 2012. He has definitely set the stage for our worst nightmare; promising further to empowering a private foreign controlled consortium to run our financial institutions, the FEDERAL RESERVE BANK; the very root cause that has been de-stabilizing our Momentary System since its creation in 1913 when it was given carte blanche power to Stabilize our Monetary System, a function in which it has utterly failed by any measure.

Why is no political Leader or journalist or talk show host not taking on this National Crusade to abolish the FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM?
Has the Fed become too powerful to even publicly criticize or challenge?

[Grabron]

Ross should register as a foreign agent. His bio shows he has never looked after the US' intrest. How he got a job in the Obama administration in the first place is beyond me...unless it is to appease some fat South Florida donors. In which case I hope he knows how to make copies and staple and run errands for the more serious NSC staffers and otherwise make himself useful. Better yet, I hope he gets fired from his new gig soon.

[gakabani]

He is just pathetic!

[Freenation]

after reading news earlier about ross gettting boot, this news is just outrageous...mr. obama please don't give up on zio.nists pressure...

[KCFreedom]

So Obama still has jobs for ne oc ons.

We need to weed them out of our government altogether, but apparently he must like them.

[basenji]

Let me get this straight: Charles Freeman was pushed out of a role at the NSC because he was perceived to be to pro-Arab, but now we are putting Dennis Ross who was a founder of Washington Institute for Near East Policy (an AIPAC group,) and chair of the Jerusalem-based think tank, the Jewish People Policy Planning Institute, in the same role???

[arle]

No really. AIPAC doesn't pull strings in Washington, DC. I don't have any idea what you're talking about.

[freshnotbitter]

I think it may be time for many of us to move on if Dennis Ross is in the National Security Council. That would simply be a sign that this administration is not serious about bringing peace to the middle east. There is not point. We can all just sit back and wait for things to get worse and worse. That is not a choice I would make.

[Kache]

"That is not a choice I would make."

I knew there was a reason why I didn't vote for you in the primary. Thanks for reminding me.

[betz55]

Get Ross out of there. He is AIPAC/JINS­A/WINEP/AD­L/PNAC/AEI to the core and will do more harm that good on behalf of the US with Iran.

Neocon has been. Out !

[PeaceIsMyName]

"Ross worked on the Middle East peace process for the administrations of former Presidents George H.W. Bush"

Good riddance. He's a failure.

[freshnotbitter]

O, have you lost your mind? Ross on the NSC? That is probably a deal breaker.

[tommyj7648]

I don't know if he is gone to the point where he can't try to push the US into a war still, he should be though. A hardcore Zionist is not the kind of impartial mediator you want in the Middle East. .. Good riddance

George Washington on Israel

"A passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification." ~George Washington Farewell Address

"The nation which indulges toward another habitual hatred or habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interests." ~ George Washington

"Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none." ~ Thomas Jefferson

[303]

George W. BALL (who served in the State department under JFK and LBJ and later as UN Ambassador) published his landmark treatise in l992: The Passionate Attachment: America's Involvement With Israel, 1947 to the Present, detailing the history of US intimidation by Israeli special interests. Good luck finding a copy. The publishing rights have been locked up for years, preventing subsequent printings; and most library copies have "disappeared, " and are "no longer in circulation."

[Pye Ian - Huffpost Blogger]

How 'bout just getting him out of government altogether? I'm almost certain that he would be welcomed with some post at the American Enterprise Institute...

[skialethia]

Hear-hear!!!

[Taxi]

I'll vote for that.