State Department Creates an Iran Office to promote democracy

Ken Timmerman, The Foundation for Democracy in Iran:

The State Department has created a special office to promote democracy-promotion in Iran, unnamed State Department officials said today. the New Office of Iran Affairs will have staff in NESA and in the Bureau of Democracy, Human rights and Labor (DRL). In addition, Sec Rice has announced she will set up an new regional office Dubai to deal with Iran and Iranians, and will assign officers to handle Iranian affairs in Azerbaijan, Germany, and Britain. Democrats in the Center for American Progress were quick to criticize the new move as counter-productive, noting that current conditions in Iran make "it likely that the administration's new strategy will backfire and only strengthen Tehran's hard-liners."