Dennis Ross Gone?
When this story originally broke in Haaertz, it alluded to how Dennis Ross being Jewish may have played a role in his rumored ouster from his position as special envoy to Iran. Of course, that’s not actually true — the mere fact that Ross, say, recites the schema every Saturday (or every day!) doesn’t disqualify him as an Iran/Persian Gulf envoy, it’s his close connections, both ideologically and personally to Israel that makes him less than credible to anyone in the Middle East besides Israel.
That and he just published a book which has a bit contemplating military action against Iran, and so you could see why he would get moved to a different spot in the government. There’s also the problem that of the three special envoys in the larger region – Mitchell, Holbrooke and Ross — Holbrooke has been sucking up the most oxygen and that Mitchell seems to have some expectations hoisted on him about jumpstarting the peace process. Ross, on the other hand, is something of an odd man out, both ideologically and logistically, so it’s not surprising that he could be going somewhere else in the government.
Of course, Haaertz seems to be the only one reporting on this, so take it all with a grain of salt.
UPDATE: Time is saying that Ross is moving to the National Security Council, which may very well be an upgrade, seeing as that puts him closer to Obama.
