How State Department cuts to Middle East experts affect US handling of Iran war

WASHINGTON (AP) — In the escalating war in Iran, the State Department’s Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs is usually at the center of the geopolitical dispute.

The role of the office, usually headed by a veteran diplomat, is to coordinate American foreign policy across an 18-nation region, much of which has become a chaotic battleground marred by drone and missile strikes, as the United States and Israel remain in conflict with Iran.

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The Trump administration briefly appointed Maura Namdar, an Iranian-origin lawyer with limited administrative experience, to the position of administrator before later transferring her to a different position. One of her credentials was her contribution to Project 2025, a conservative think tank blueprint for the second Trump administration. Namdar’s last predecessor to be confirmed by the Senate was a longtime Middle East expert who had worked at the department since 1984 and served as U.S. ambassador to the United Arab Emirates.

Now that office is also operating with far fewer resources. The administration’s most recent budget proposed a 40% cut to the office, though Congress ultimately passed less dramatic cuts. The administration also abolished the office dedicated to Iran, and merged it with the Iraq office.

Reduced staffing and management options hamper emergency response

This kind of personnel and management choices — coupled with President Donald Trump’s moves to shrink government and confine decision-making to a narrow circle — limits the United States’ ability to deal with a global emergency, according to interviews with more than a dozen current and former U.S. officials, many of whom have recently left government.

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In the State Department departments that usually handle the response to Iran, many veteran diplomats with decades of collective experience have been fired, retired or reassigned — and replaced by junior officials or political appointees. The administration laid off more than 80 employees in Near Eastern affairs, according to figures compiled by a State Department employee who was fired last year based on surveys of his colleagues. (The department does not publish official figures on staffing levels for Foreign Service personnel but has not disputed the number.)

The Trump administration left the position of Assistant Secretary responsible for Near Eastern Affairs vacant, along with key ambassadorial positions in the Middle East. Four of the five supervisors in the office have temporary titles.

Current and former officials, some of whom requested anonymity to discuss sensitive internal matters during an active conflict, paint a picture of an understaffed government workforce struggling to implement the president’s agenda. Those who stay tell their colleagues that their analyses, recommendations and advice go unheeded.

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The State Department strongly objected to those assessments.

State Department spokesman Tommy Piggott said: “As far as we can tell, the AP ‘report’ on the evacuations does not include any conversations with the people actually involved. Instead, it relies on ‘outside’ or ‘former official’ sources who have no idea what they are talking about. The AP has run across specific inaccuracy after specific inaccuracy — in fact how wrong the entire premise was.”

More than 3,800 State Department employees have left since Trump took office

The State Department has seen more than 3,800 employees leave since Trump took office through a combination of force cuts, employees taking deferred resignation and regular retirement. According to estimates by the American Foreign Service Association, the labor union that represents foreign service employees, senior foreign service personnel were disproportionately represented in layoffs compared to their share of the total workforce.

“He’s making choices without the significant expertise of the United States government that would identify issues with consequences,” said Max Stier, CEO of the nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service, a nonprofit group that studies federal workforce issues. “Sometimes government is slow-moving because there are so many different factors that need to be balanced against each other.”

For example, the administration appears to have been surprised by what would happen once the United States struck Iran — something Trump himself acknowledged this week when he expressed surprise at Tehran’s retaliation with strikes on America’s allies in the region. “Nobody expected that,” Trump told reporters this week. “We were shocked. They fought back.”

Piggott said the staff reduction “has no adverse impact on our ability to respond to this operation, our ability to plan, and our ability to execute to serve Americans.” He added that the ministry “rejects the premise that key decisions were made without meaningful input from experienced professionals.”

But Iranian retaliation against US allies was expected, according to former officials, as well as previous maneuvers and conflict models run by both the US military and private organizations. The National Security Council, which Trump trimmed, typically provided the president with analysis from experts within the bureaucracy.

Instead, decisions are made by a small group of officials close to the president without planning or coordination with larger government agencies, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who also serves as the president’s national security adviser.

“In the Trump administration, decisions are made by President Trump and senior administration officials, not by anonymous bureaucratic leakers complaining to the press about not being consulted about top-secret operations,” White House spokesman Dylan Johnson said.

The advice of career officials often goes unheeded

“At the time I was there, there was no political process to talk about,” said Chris Buckmeyer, who served as deputy assistant secretary of state before resigning last year. Buckmeier was a major supporter of the Iran deal that Trump abandoned. He recently left government to run for Congress as a Democrat in Nebraska.

“They don’t want to hear any advice from professional people,” Buckmeyer said.

Namdar was later transferred to serve as chief of consular affairs, part of the department responsible for providing assistance to American citizens abroad and issuing visas to foreign visitors.

When the United States made the decision to strike Iran, Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee offered embassy staff in Jerusalem the opportunity to evacuate — a sign that he knew the strikes were coming. But some other embassies in the region have not made similar arrangements, leaving nonessential staff and their families stuck in a war zone.

The ministry said it had issued travel warnings since January, and had a full staff to deal with the crisis the moment the strikes began.

Evacuation planning was chaotic

However, there appears to have been little planning for how to evacuate Americans who were living, working, visiting or studying in several countries mired in conflict — in part because the White House appears to have underestimated the potential for strikes to expand into a long, multi-country war, as evidenced by Trump’s own comments.

After Iranian attacks on allies such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, the State Department began calling on Americans to leave the region. But many former consular affairs employees say such planning should have begun long before the US strikes began.

In a statement posted on social media, Namdar asked the Americans to evacuate just several days into the conflict, when airspace was largely closed and many commercial flights were no longer available.

Yael Limpert, who served as US ambassador to Jordan until 2025, said: “The messages sent to US citizens – after the US struck Iran – were very late and confusing at first.” Limpert is one of five former ambassadors expected to speak out about the department’s failings at an event Thursday at the American Academy of Diplomacy in Washington.

Other poorly executed evacuations, such as the Biden administration’s withdrawal from Afghanistan, have drawn criticism.

But officials say this time has been made worse by the loss of experienced people. Consular Affairs has lost more than 150 jobs in the Trump administration due to a combination of force cuts, probationary staff separations, and retirements, according to a U.S. official who requested anonymity — though other parts of the department have been hit much harder.

The ministry indicates that it has provided assistance to nearly 50,000 Americans affected by the conflict, with more than 60 flights to evacuate citizens from the region. In total, the department says more than 70,000 Americans have been able to return home since the outbreak of hostilities on February 28.

Democrat says staff reductions jeopardize safety

“The loss of experienced staff through these regional funds has clearly undermined the ability of the Office of Consular Affairs to accomplish its most important mission, which is protecting Americans abroad,” Senator Jeanne Shaheen, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in a statement.

The department’s language skills are also atrophying. Thirteen Arabic speakers and four Persian speakers, all trained at taxpayer expense, were among the employees laid off, according to a draft letter circulated by former Foreign Service officials.

It can cost $200,000 to train a Foreign Service employee in a language. The letter estimates that the total number of people fired by the State Department in the name of competency received more than $35 million in taxpayer-funded language training and more than $100 million in total other training and career development.

The State Department has formed two temporary task forces to deal with the crisis in the Middle East. One is intended to enhance Near Eastern Affairs capabilities and the other is intended to assist Consular Affairs in evacuating Americans.

A group of more than 250 Foreign Service employees were part of the administration’s cut last year, but they remain on the State Department’s payroll. Many volunteered to return to the department to work either on a task force or to do other work that needed to be done as a global crisis erupted.

“I didn’t get any termination papers. I still have an active clearance. I can go back to the department tomorrow, either to fill the gap or hire staff,” said one Foreign Service employee, who requested anonymity because they are technically still on the department’s payroll and not authorized to speak to the press. “I’ll do the hard work.”

The ministry did not respond to their offer, but said in a statement that the task force was “fully equipped.”