Robin Raphel

Robin Lynn Raphel (born 1947) is an American former diplomat, ambassador, CIA analyst, lobbyist, and an expert on Pakistan affairs.

Robin Lynn Johnson was born in Vancouver, Washington in 1947 to Vera and Donald Johnson, a manager of an aluminum plant.

She has two sisters, Karen Freeze and Deborah Johnson.

She graduated from high school in Longview, Washington in 1965.

She received a B.A. in history and economics from the University of Washington in 1969.

During her undergraduate years she studied history at the University of London, and would later return to England after graduation to study for a year at Cambridge University.

In 1970, she took a position as a teacher at Damavand College, an Iranian women's college in Tehran, where she taught history for two years.

She earned her master's degree in economics from the University of Maryland.

Robin Raphel began her career in the U.S. government as an analyst at the CIA after graduating with her master's degree.

After leaving Iran she joined the diplomatic corps and assisted USAID in Islamabad as an economics analyst.

In 1978, Raphel returned to the United States and joined the State Department.

She would take on a range of assignments for the next decade, including posts in London, until she was appointed as Political Counselor at the U.S. Embassy in Pretoria, South Africa in 1988.

U.S. energy policies in the mid-1990s sought to develop alternative supply routes to counter increasing tensions in the Middle East.

The Clinton administration supported oil and gas pipelines to transport Turkmenistan's energy reserves through Afghanistan to an exit at Pakistan's Indian Ocean seaport of Gwadar.

In 1991, she took the assignment of Political Counselor at the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi, India.

In 1993, she was appointed by President Bill Clinton as the Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs.

In 1993, President Bill Clinton appointed Raphel as the first Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs within the Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs, a newly created position within the State Department focused on a growing array of problems in Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, including democratic stability, nuclear proliferation, energy access, Islamist and Taliban extremism, poverty and women's rights issues.

At the time, Pakistan had not tested its nuclear capabilities, opting for a policy of nuclear opacity.

Kashmir was raised on the agenda in Bhutto's first state visit to Washington in April 1995.

It would remain a key topic of regional and bilateral discussions with both India and Pakistan throughout Clinton's two terms in office.

She later served as U.S. Ambassador to Tunisia from November 7, 1997 to August 6, 2000, during Clinton's second term in office.

She left the State Department's South Asia section in late June 1997.

During her tenure at the State Department, Raphel worked to support US government policy of engagement and collaboration with the Taliban.

She was one of the first senior American officials to meet personally with Taliban.

One of the channels for U.S.-Taliban cooperation that she prioritized was through energy.

India's nuclear program was at the time also under the same undeclared status, which ended in 1998 with the Pokhran-II tests.

Tensions between Pakistan and India over the unresolved dispute in Kashmir were threatening war between the two nations.

Pakistan's armed forces and intelligence services were using Afghanistan's turmoil to create "strategic depth" by fostering alliances with the Taliban.

Meanwhile, democracy's experiment in Pakistan was witnessing a revolving door of army-induced change between the governments of Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif.

At the State Department, Raphel tried to reduce tensions between India and Pakistan by engaging both countries in a negotiated solution to their Kashmir dispute.

In the 2000s, Raphel held a number of South Asia-related diplomatic positions.

She retired from the State Department in 2005 after 30 years of service.

After retirement, Raphel was hired to head the global affairs and trade group of Cassidy & Associates, a DC lobbying firm.

She returned to the State Department in 2009 as a senior adviser on Pakistan under Richard Holbrooke, during the tenure of then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Surveillance of her communications began in February, 2013 and became public knowledge in October, 2014.

She was suspected of being a Pakistani asset.

After abandoning the claim that she had been spying, the FBI urged Raphel to plead guilty to mishandling classified documents.

Until November 2, 2014, she served as coordinator for non-military assistance to Pakistan.

Raphel was the subject of a federal counterintelligence investigation.

Raphel refused the plea deal, and in March 2016, the Justice Department declined to file charges against her.