Senate confirms top USAID official and four ambassadors
Late Thursday, the Senate unanimously confirmed Eric Postel to a top post at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and also confirmed three U.S. ambassadors and the first full-time U.S. representative to ASEAN. Postel assumes the role of USAID assistant administrator for economic growth, agriculture, and trade. In 1989, he founded the emerging markets ...
Late Thursday, the Senate unanimously confirmed Eric Postel to a top post at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and also confirmed three U.S. ambassadors and the first full-time U.S. representative to ASEAN.
Postel assumes the role of USAID assistant administrator for economic growth, agriculture, and trade. In 1989, he founded the emerging markets investment firm Pangaea Partners, and before that he was a vice president at Citibank Tokyo. Postel was appointed by the Senate in 2007 to the U.S. HELP Commission, which focused on reform of U.S. foreign assistance programs.
The Senate also confirmed David Carden as the first ever U.S. ambassador to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), who will live in Jakarta and work out of the U.S. Embassy there. U.S. Ambassador to Indonesia Scot Marciel had until now served as both the top U.S. representative to ASEAN and the top U.S. envoy to the Indonesian government. Carden, who chairs the securities litigation and SEC enforcement practice at the law firm Jones Day, partnered with his wife Rebecca Riley to raise at least $500,000 for Obama’s campaign.
Carden’s selection is another example of the White House’s tendency to give diplomatic posts to those who filled its campaign coffers, rather than regional experts or seasoned diplomats. Other examples include the appointment of investment banker Louis Susman as ambassador to Britain, Pittsburgh Steelers owner Daniel Rooney as ambassador to Ireland, entertainment mogul Charles Rivkin as ambassador to France, and California lawyer John Roos as ambassador to Japan.
The three other ambassadors confirmed Thursday are all career Foreign Service officers. Pamela Spratlen, most recently the deputy chief of mission in Kazakhstan, was confirmed to be ambassador to the Kyrgyz Republic. Daniel Shields, currently the director of the State Department’s Office of Mainland Southeast Asia, was confirmed to be the ambassador to Brunei. And Sue Kathrine Brown will now represent the U.S. as ambassador to Montenegro.
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
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