Hollowed out: State Department's Middle East Bureau struggles to manage Iran war

In the escalating war in Iran, the State Department's Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs would ordinarily be at the center of the geopolitical fray.

- By Byron Tau

Typically led by a veteran diplomat, the bureau's role would be to coordinate US foreign policy across an 18-country region, much of which has become a chaotic battlefield scarred by drone and missile strikes as the US and Israel remain locked in conflict with Iran.

The Trump administration for a time put Mora Namdar, a lawyer of Iranian descent with limited management experience, in charge before later moving her to a different post. One of her credentials was her contribution to Project 2025, a conservative think tank's blueprint for the second Trump administration. Namdar’s last Senate-confirmed predecessor was a longtime Middle East expert who had been with the department since 1984 and had served as the US ambassador to the United Arab Emirates.

Now that bureau is also working with far fewer resources. The administration's most recent budget proposed a 40% cut to the bureau, though Congress eventually enacted less dramatic cuts. The administration also eliminated the dedicated Iran office, merging it with the Iraq office.

Staff reductions and management choices hamper emergency response

THESE kinds of personnel and management choices — coupled with President Donald Trump's moves to shrink government and confine decision-making to a tight circle — are limiting the ability of the United States to handle a global emergency, according to interviews with more than a dozen current and former US officials, many of whom recently left government.