— Domani Spero
Late afternoon on December 16, the Senate began a 15 minute roll call vote on confirmation of Executive Calendar #406, Anne W. Patterson, of Virginia, a Career Member of the Senior Foreign Service, Class of Career Ambassador, to be an Assistant Secretary of State (Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs). She was confirmed by 78-16 votes.
The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs (NEA), currently headed by Acting Assistant Secretary Beth Jones, deals with U.S. foreign policy and U.S. diplomatic relations with Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan,Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Palestinian Territories,Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, andYemen. Regional policy issues that NEA handles include Iraq, Middle East peace, terrorism and weapons of mass destruction, and political and economic reform.
The former Deputy State IG, and former ambassador to Egypt (also to El Salvador and Colombia) will now be in charge of that whole region.
Ambassador Patterson will take over a bureau that this past summer, sacrificed one of it’s DASes in the Benghazi fallout. She succeeds Jeffrey Feltman whose NEA bureau back in 2011 gets high marks despite the workload and chaos. See Near Eastern Affairs Bureau in Action Gets High Marks: Outstanding Job, High Morale Amidst Intense Workload and Regional Chaos. Ambassador Feltman left in May 2012 for the Political Affairs position in the UN.
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