Al Kamen at the Washington Post reports that Dan Kurtzer could be special envoy for Arab-Israeli matters and Dennis Ross special envoy for Iran. “We’re hearing plans are afoot at the State Department to have a string of “special envoys”...
appointed to handle top-priority trouble areas around the world. In addition to a special envoy for India, Pakistan and Afghanistan -- former U.N. ambassador Richard Holbrooke looks to be an obvious choice -- it appears we may have a special envoy focusing on Arab-Israeli matters -- perhaps someone such as retired diplomat Daniel C. Kurtzer, former ambassador to Israel and Egypt and now at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. There’s also talk that Christopher R. Hill, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, will become special but keep plugging away on the North Korean nuke problem. And Dennis Ross, a close Obama adviser, longtime diplomat and President Bill Clinton’s special envoy to the Middle East, could be a special envoy to Iran, with maybe a broader portfolio of the Middle East in general. (That is, if he doesn’t take the post of undersecretary for political affairs or some other uber-position in Foggy Bottom or in the White House.) The undersecretary for political affairs is usually reserved for a career Foreign Service officer, and career people would like current undersecretary Bill Burns to stay on.”
