Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Founder of the "State Department's Office of Iranian Affairs" quits post

Laura Rosen writes in MoJo, here
"... Denehy's departure comes just a few weeks after his colleague, J. Scott Carpenter, left Foggy Bottom for a fellowship at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. At a forum there featuring Carpenter and other pro democracy experts earlier this month, the International Republican Institute's president Lorne Cramer said he had reluctantly come to the conclusion that the whole Middle East pro democracy program should be moved outside the State Department (where it is unpopular), perhaps to a new institution created in the style of the National Endowment for Democracy.
Denehy and Carpenter both previously worked for the International Republican Institute.
Denehy's and Carpenter's former boss at State, Liz Cheney, left the Bush administration in the spring of 2006 on maternity leave, but never really came back, sources say. Her departure left those she had brought into the State Department somewhat orphaned in a bureaucracy some consider hostile to their efforts to promote regime change in Iran.
Liz Cheney has since become a foreign policy advisor to the Fred Thompson campaign. "

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