Who is John Limbert?

Well, he’s the new Deputy Assistant Secretary for Iran in the State Department’s Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs who is, according to Melanie Phillips, a “fifth columnist” who is “in hock to the Iranian regime”. Melanie suggests that Limbert’s appointment means Tehran “now has its own man running the United States’s policy towards Iran” and asks “Has there ever been a situation where the President of a country delivers his country in this fashion to its mortal enemy?”

May I quietly suggest that this is not quite the case? Until recently Limbert was Professor of International Affairs at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis. Before that he enjoyed a 33 year State Department career. Before that he spent several years teaching in Iran. He speaks Farsi fluently. And thirty years ago he was working as an official in the US Embassy in Tehran when, with many others, he was taken hostage and held prisoner for 14 months.