As also posted some seven hours ago under today’s link thread, Haaretz is reporting that Dennis Ross will be fired from his position as the Iran coordinator of the Obama government:
Dennis Ross, who most recently served as a special State Department envoy to Iran, will abruptly be relieved of his duties, sources in Washington told Haaretz. An official announcement is expected in the coming days.
The Obama administration will announce that Ross has been reassigned to another position in the White House. In his new post, the former Mideast peace envoy under President Bill Clinton will deal primarily with regional issues related to the peace process.
As of now the report is unconfirmed by other sources.
The current Haaretz piece is headlined: “Why is Dennis Ross being ousted as Obama envoy to Iran?” The earlier headline was: “Was Dennis Ross ousted as U.S. envoy to Iran because he’s a Jew?”. If I remember correctly the earlier piece did not include the second paragraph of the current one which says Ross will in future “deal primarily with regional issues related to the peace process.”
We do not know why Ross was moved from that position. He should not have been put there in the first place because he is a. against talking with Iran, b. has never had success in achieving agreements in his earlier roles in the Clinton administration, c. has no experience on or with Iran at all.
Haaretz names several possible reason for this move. His open mistrust about talks with Iran, Irans alleged refusal to accept Ross in the negotiator role, his possible own dissatisfaction with his job and a rumored move of Ross to the National Security Agency where, a Haaretz source claims, he would work more directly under Obama.
The last claim sounds bogus to me. Ross does not have any experience as spy – at least not for the United States. The other ones are spurious too. Ross’ positions towards Iran was known before he was put onto the job. They can not be reason to now remove him.
I for one assume something different. Over the last month a character assassination campaign was launched against the head of the National Security Council James Jones.
It publicly started May 18 when Sally Quinn, conservative wife of former Washington Post editor Benjamin C. Bradlee, gossiped:
The knives are out. The tom-toms are beating. And by Washington standards it’s soon. Usually the trashing of the national security adviser takes longer.
In recent days articles have appeared in The Post and the New York Times questioning the abilities of retired four-star Gen. Jim Jones, the former commandant of the Marine Corps and former NATO commander.
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Today, the sniping is reportedly coming mostly from State Department officials and some staffers at the White House.
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Obama has said many times that he wants to hear all voices. He famously assembled a team of rivals. And if those who are sniping think Jim Jones is not doing a good job, they should go directly to the president, not leak and spin to the press. That’s their duty. Obama is not afraid to cut his losses.
In an earlier portrait David Ignatius wrote about Jones:
Jones is an activist on the Palestinian issue, which he lists as a top priority for the new administration. He wants the United States to offer a guiding hand in peace negotiations — submitting its own ideas to help break any logjams between the Israelis and Palestinians. “The United States is at its best when it’s directly involved,” Jones says.
The second attack against Jones came in a Steve Clemons rumor piece at the Washington Note last Friday where he asked: Can James Jones Survive a Second Round of Attacks and “Longer Knives”😕
I’ve received not just one email — but three — from prominent insider journalists and policy hands that Jim Jones’ tenure as National Security Adviser is highly fragile.
One of these emails reports starkly:
Knives getting longer
That’s all my contact said. But other emails have intimated to me a serious tone-deafness by Jones about his role and responsibilities, his relationship with the President, and his relationship with younger, dedicated, hardworking and late-working staff.
That was followed by lots of assertions about how Jones’ character and how he does his job. All of which were set out in a bad light even when one could argue that they are rather positive. Clemons ended:
Jones has structured an all views on the table approach to decision making — quite evident when it comes to Middle East policy — and the hawkish/neocon-friendly/Likudist-hugging part of the Obama administration’s foreign policy operation may be engaged in a coup attempt against Jones.
I don’t know if he’ll survive this latest effort to oust him — but folks need to know that those “longer knives”, on the whole, do not have pure motives.
It seems clear to me that those attacks came from a high and well connected level at the State Department and as they are connected to Middle East policy quite likely directly from Dennis Ross who is also well known for bureaucratic infighting.
If so(and if Haaretz’s sources are right), Ross just lost that fight by knock out in the third round.
As Pat Lang warned when the Quinn piece came out:
One should not confuse reserve with timidity. A former commandant of the US Marine Corps is a dangerous enemy.
Ross just learned that lesson.