November 18, 2016
Sahar Nowrouzzadeh has left the White House and is now assigned to the Policy Planning Staff at the State Department.
Nowrouzzadeh, 36, spent the last two years assigned by the State Department to the National Security Council Staff in the White House, where she coordinated Iran issues for Susan Rice, the national security adviser to President Obama.
She was also part of the team that dealt with the nuclear negotiations with Iran.
A State Department employee for several years, her new role is as one of 20 members of the Policy Planning Staff, which is often viewed as the intellectual heart of the State Department. It doesn’t chase day-to-day crises but tries to take the long view of policy. And she is now the main person looking at where US relations with Iran go in the long run.
One year ago, the ultra-conservative Breitbart News took out after Nowrouzzadeh, virtually accusing her of being an Iranian spy in the White House. Its evidence for that was that she had once written some papers published by the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), which Breitbart categorized as a front for the Islamic Republic. That attack passed over in a few weeks.
Nowrouzzadeh was born in Connecticut to Iranian parents who had emigrated to the United States long before the revolution when her father began his residency as an OB/GYN. Connecticut is not a stronghold of Iranian immigrants, so she says she was usually the only Iranian in the schools she attended.
She said she was the source of information about Iran for her classmates, and does not speak of being harassed because she was Iranian. “They truly loved learning about and experiencing Iranian culture, eating Persian food at our house—especially tadiq,” she said, “—and learning bits and pieces of the Persian language. Many learned how to sing ‘Tavalodet Mobarak’,” the Persian birthday song.
Nowrouzzadeh received her bachelor’s degree in International Affairs with a double concentration in International Economics and Middle East Studies from George Washington University in Washington, DC. She completed her master’s in Persian Studies at the University of Maryland-College Park.
Since completing her undergraduate education in 2005, Sahar has worked for the United States government. She began her career at the Department of Defense, where she served as a Foreign Affairs Analyst.
Later, she joined the Department of State as a Foreign Affairs Officer and was subsequently detailed to the White House in 2014.
Now back in the State Department, she briefly took on the role of Persian Language spokesperson during the UN General Assembly and may do it again in the future. “However, my primary role at the State Department is covering the Iran portfolio on Secretary Kerry’s Policy Planning Staff.”
She knows several languages, including Farsi, Dari, Arabic and Spanish.
