It has been an honor to work in the Obama Administration and to serve this President, particularly during a period of unprecedented change in the broader Middle East. Obviously, there is still work to do but I promised my wife I would return to government for only two years and we both agreed it is time to act on my promise.

Ross returned briefly to academia in the 1980s serving as executive director of the Berkeley-Stanford program on Soviet International Behavior from 1984-1986. His Jewish mother and Catholic stepfather raised him in a non-religious atmosphere. intervention in "the Persian Gulf Region because of our need for Persian Gulf oil and because events in the Persian Gulf affect the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Ross (born November 26 1948) is an American diplomat and author. Bush the special Middle East coordinator under President Bill Clinton and was a special adviser for the Persian Gulf and Southwest Asia (which includes Iran) to the former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. He has served as the Director of Policy Planning in the State Department under President George H.