WASHINGTON: US foreign policy veteran Dennis Ross has been appointed special adviser to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on the Gulf region, including Iran, and Southwest Asia, the State Department announced on Monday.

"This is a region in which America is fighting two wars and facing challenges of ongoing conflict, terror, proliferation, access to energy, economic development and strengthening democracy and the rule of law," State Department spokesman Robert Wood said in a statement announcing the appointment.

Ross, a veteran of Arab-Israeli negotiations when Clinton's husband, Bill Clinton, was president, will advise on both Iran and the broader Middle East region.

Ross is currently counselor at the Washington Institute of Near East Policy and was a US point person on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process in both the Clinton and George H.W. Bush administrations.

One glitch for Ross is that some observers say he is currently the chairman of the Jewish People Policy Planning Institute (JPPPI) in Jerusalem, established by the Jewish Agency in 2002. They believe Ross could face legal challenges under the 1938 Foreign Agents Registration Act, or FARA, as it could present a conflict of interest between US government service and the JPPPI.

“Ross is expected to provide Secretary Clinton and senior State Department officials’ strategic advice and perspective on the region, a senior State Department official told Arab News on background.

“He is also expected to offer assessments and ensure affective policy integration throughout the region, while coordinating with senior officials with the development and formulation of new policy approaches.”

Ross’s appointment adds another prominent name to the ranks of special envoys and advisers in the State Department.

Former Sen. George Mitchell, the special envoy for the Middle East, and Richard Holbrooke, the special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, have both already returned from their first visits in their regions.

Unlike Mitchell and Holbrooke, who are presidential envoys, Ross will report exclusively to Secretary Clinton.

The Obama administration is reviewing US policy toward Iran. It is looking into ways of engaging Tehran on a broad range of issues from seeking cooperation in Afghanistan to giving up sensitive nuclear work that the West suspects is aimed at building an atomic bomb.

Ross has advocated a tough approach toward Iran that included persuading Europe to increase economic pressure on the government in Tehran. He is a co-founder of United Against Nuclear Iran, a group dedicated to stopping the country from acquiring nuclear weapons.

US government agencies from the Pentagon and State Department, to the White House and Treasury, are grappling with how to devise a joint approach to curb Iran's nuclear program and Ross's role will be to help coordinate overall policy, said the State Department official.

But the Huffington Post pointedly noted Tuesday that, “before the papers are signed for Ross' new employment with the US government, he should be asked if he “is planning to resign this position, and questioned whether JPPPI receives funds from the Jewish Agency, or any other arm of the Israeli government, “or has it received such funds during any of the time Dennis Ross has been affiliated with it? If so, should he have filed as a foreign agent under the Foreign Agents Registration Act? If he should have and did not, why did he fail to do so?

“Some may complain that the allegation of "dual loyalty" is being raised against Dennis Ross, pointing to the racist history of that charge. But surely most Americans would agree that there should be one standard for all,” noted the Huffington Post.

“It would be the height of hypocrisy and absurdity to rake Hillary Clinton over the coals because her husband's humanitarian foundation has received donations from Arab governments, while not even bothering to ask if Dennis Ross has been serving in a leadership capacity for an organization that may have received funding from the Israeli government.”