US State Department - Recruiting The Next Generation Of Iran Experts : Washington, Dubai, and Europe

Folllowing the seizure and subsequent evacuation of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran during the 1979 revolution in Iran, the Department of State's (DOS's) Iran expertise had eroded over the decades. In a March 2006 State Department cable, the DOS sought to expand its already existing Iran expertise in order to "enhance the [DOS's] capacity to respond to the full spectrum of threats Iran poses" (this "spectrum" was not made precise), building on already-established Farsi Language Designated Iran watcher posts in Afghanistan, Turkey, and Dubai, and posts in the Intelligence and Research Bureau, among others.

This unclassified 2006 DOS cable1 announced an initiative to re-establish a cadre of Farsi-speaking Iran experts within the DOS's corps of foreign officers, and corresponding career opportunities at posts to be established. These new positions were announced as "part of the Global Diplomatic Repositioning Strategy to generation of support Transformational Diplomacy and [President Bush's] Freedom Agenda."

The Office of Iranian Affairs (NEA/IR), housed in the Pentagon office space where the Office of Special Plans used to be located, would be established to lead in formulating and coordinating policy effort toward Iran, both domestically and abroad, and be the nexus for a network of designated Iran watcher positions at overseas posts. The OIS would base the formulation and coordination of its policy in part on reports from its

(1) Regional Presence Office (RPO) in Dubai, which would be modeled on "the Riga Station that the United States maintained during the 1920s for […] tracking events in the USSR and providing diplomats with everyday practice in Russian language and culture." The RPO would be staffed by five Foreign Service Officers (FSOs), counting an Iran watcher already stationed in Dubai, together with four Locally Engaged Staff, with one Office Management Specialist responsible for supporting the RPO activities.

Responsibilities of the FSOs include :

  • reaching out to the Iranian community in Dubai, consisting of 560,000 expatriates and 10,000 students : developing American Studies Programs targeted at Iranians studying at universities in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), arranging seminars to facilitate recruitment of Iranian students to American universities,
  • establishing connections with pro-democracy groups inside Iran and within the diaspora : establishing connections between Washington-based groups and Iranian pro-democracy groups, alerting Washington on need to issue statements on behalf of Iranian dissidents, seeking ways to use U.S. Government programs and funding to support Iranian political and civic organizations,
  • monitoring and reporting on economic and commercial developments in Iran, with focus on Iran's petroleum sector : analyzing problems in key sectors of the Iranian economy, such as the petroleum industry, developing information of value to the United States, establishing and maintaining contact with knowledgeable Iranian and UAE personnel, advancing U.S. economic and commercial policies where possible.

(2) Iran watcher posts in the Consulates of İstanbul, Frankfurt, and Baku, and in the Embassy of London. The consular posts would be responsible for developing contacts with nearby Iranian expatriate communities, providing the OIA with information and analysis of issues in those communities, while advancing U.S. policy objectives and monitoring Iranian foreign policy efforts in these areas. The watcher post in Baku would also be charged with "monitoring Caspian Oil issues."

The London Embassy Iran watcher post would staff five Foreign Service Officers, whose responsibilities include outreach to the Iranian diaspora, monitoring and reporting Iranian foreign policy activities in the United Kingdom, involvement in miltilateral diplomacy around human rights and labor, and Iran's relations with the United Nations.

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