President Obama has named a woman identified as both Iranian-born and Indian to be the next US ambassador to Sweden.
There was considerable confusion over the ethnicity of Azita Raji, though no confusion over her qualifications to be ambassador. She was one of the major “bundlers,” or collectors of campaign contributions, for Obama in 2008 and 2012.
At the start of Obama’s second term, Raji was named by Obama as a member of the President’s Commission on White House Fellowships, the panel that helps find people for the prestigious fellowships.
The White House at that time said, “Raji was born in Tehran, Iran, and spent her early years growing up and studying in Iran and Western Europe.” It said she graduated from high school in Lausanne, Switzerland, and came to the United States at age 17 to attend college.
But in the biography attached to her nomination as ambassador to Sweden, the White House said nothing about where Raji was born or what her ethnicity was.
An Internet search shows the Indian media has been claiming her for years as an Indian-American. But those news reports say nothing about her birthplace.
If Raji is indeed Iranian and is confirmed, she would become the first Iranian-American US ambassador in history. But she would only be the second nominee.
In the 1990s, President Bill Clinton nominated Hassan Nemazee to be the US ambassador to Argentina. The nomination was later withdrawn after articles appeared questioning his ethics and conduct.
In July 2010, he was convicted of multiple counts of fraud and sentenced to 12 1/2 years in prison.
Raji got her BA in French and architecture from Barnard College in New York and her MBA from Columbia Business School and then made a career for herself on Wall Street, from which she has now retired. She worked for such firms as JPMorgan Securities, Solomon Brothers and Drexel Burnham Lambert.
She now lives in Northern California and engages in philanthropy. She is married to Gary Syman, the retired managing director of Goldman Sachs in San Francisco.
In 2012, she was named one of the Obama campaign’s 244 successful bundlers who raised almost half of his campaign war chest. She was credited with bringing in more than $500,000 in campaign contributions.
Raji apparently set her eyes on an ambassador after that. The Washington Post said she was originally eyeing Italy, but the administration then began talking to her about Switzerland. Now the White House appointments shop has settled on Sweden.
Under all presidents, a major protion of ambassadorships are handed out to major campaign contributors.
The Iran Times has sought clarification of Raji’s origins from the State Department, but it said it doesn’t have that information.
