US Envoy for Iran?

The rising tide of opinion is flowing very much against Dennis Ross being selected as U.S. envoy for Iran. Just this evening I spoke to a very respected senior U.S. diplomat (now retired). He repeated what others have told me, namely that Pres. Obama is getting lots of advice that choosing Ross for the job would be a big mistake. As noted here before, Ross failed twice on Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking, by his own admission he looks at development in the region with an Israeli lens, and he is integrally connected with pro-Israeli groups that have been hostile to a dialogue with Iran. Moreover, if he is selected for the job, Iran will take that as evidence that the U.S. government is simply not serious about its declared objective. A major PR effort was mounted to make the Ross appointment a fait accomplis, but it is far from being so.