Middle East Analysis: Dennis Ross & the Battle Within the Obama Administration
Sunday, May 22, 2011 at 8:27 | Scott Lucas in EA Middle East and Turkey, EA USA, Middle East and Iran, US Foreign Policy 
Israeli PM Netanyahu and Dennis RossIn February 2009, we headlined, "Treading Softly on Iran: Dennis Ross Sneaks into the Administration". Our analysis at the time:
He has been brought [into the Administration] with a remit so broad that it threatens to be vague. Now he is not focused on Iran but overlapping with both [Afghanistan-Pakistan envoy Richard] Holbrooke and [Israel-Palestine envoy George] Mitchell. There may be some State Department master-plan setting out how Ross, a forceful personality, will work with those two envoys --- equally forceful personalities --- and how he and his staff will in turn work with permanent State Department desks overseeing the Middle Eastern, Persian Gulf, and Southwest Asian regions.
More than two years later, Holbrooke is dead and Mitchell has resigned in frustration. But Ross is still very much present in the National Security Council. And the operative term is not "work with" other personalities and other departments but "work against".