Rumor mill: Kerry to Tehran?
The Cable is picking up some chatter today around town that Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman John Kerry is offering to travel to Tehran to try to broker a last-ditch agreement with the Iranian regime regarding its nuclear program. It’s an interesting idea considering Kerry’s role in representing the administration after the recent Afghan presidential ...
The Cable is picking up some chatter today around town that Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman John Kerry is offering to travel to Tehran to try to broker a last-ditch agreement with the Iranian regime regarding its nuclear program.
It’s an interesting idea considering Kerry’s role in representing the administration after the recent Afghan presidential election. But Iran isn’t Afghanistan and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is no Hamid Karzai.
And after all, he does seem to be the administration’s point man on negotiations over new Iran sanctions.
One Middle East insider told The Cable that Kerry pitched the idea to the White House and the White House was thinking it over.
National Security Council spokesman Mike Hammer couldn’t confirm or deny the story and Senate Foreign Relations staff declined to comment.
Kerry is in Copenhagen today. Let’s see what happens…
OLIVIER MORIN/AFP/Getty Images
Josh Rogin covers national security and foreign policy and writes the daily Web column The Cable. His column appears bi-weekly in the print edition of The Washington Post. He can be reached for comments or tips at josh.rogin@foreignpolicy.com.
Previously, Josh covered defense and foreign policy as a staff writer for Congressional Quarterly, writing extensively on Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantánamo Bay, U.S.-Asia relations, defense budgeting and appropriations, and the defense lobbying and contracting industries. Prior to that, he covered military modernization, cyber warfare, space, and missile defense for Federal Computer Week Magazine. He has also served as Pentagon Staff Reporter for the Asahi Shimbun, Japan's leading daily newspaper, in its Washington, D.C., bureau, where he reported on U.S.-Japan relations, Chinese military modernization, the North Korean nuclear crisis, and more.
A graduate of George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs, Josh lived in Yokohama, Japan, and studied at Tokyo's Sophia University. He speaks conversational Japanese and has reported from the region. He has also worked at the House International Relations Committee, the Embassy of Japan, and the Brookings Institution.
Josh's reporting has been featured on CNN, MSNBC, C-Span, CBS, ABC, NPR, WTOP, and several other outlets. He was a 2008-2009 National Press Foundation's Paul Miller Washington Reporting Fellow, 2009 military reporting fellow with the Knight Center for Specialized Journalism and the 2011 recipient of the InterAction Award for Excellence in International Reporting. He hails from Philadelphia and lives in Washington, D.C. Twitter: @joshrogin
More from Foreign Policy


A New Multilateralism
How the United States can rejuvenate the global institutions it created.


America Prepares for a Pacific War With China It Doesn’t Want
Embedded with U.S. forces in the Pacific, I saw the dilemmas of deterrence firsthand.


The Endless Frustration of Chinese Diplomacy
Beijing’s representatives are always scared they could be the next to vanish.


The End of America’s Middle East
The region’s four major countries have all forfeited Washington’s trust.