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From Middle East to West Texas

March 13, 2015

Former U.S. Ambassador James Larocco estimates he has traveled 600,000 miles in just the past five years. About 229 miles of that was to make his first visit to San Angelo March 10-11 as the featured speaker for ASU’s E. James Holland-Roy A. Harrell Jr. Foreign Affairs Speakers Program.

Ambassador to Kuwait from 1997 to 2001, Larocco shared insights on U.S.-Middle East relations with students, faculty, staff and community members during two lectures. The first was titled “Foreign Policy Issues in the Middle East: Crises, Challenges and Opportunities,” followed by “The Changing Economics of the Middle East and the United States: Seeking Opportunities Amid Uncertainty.”

Retired Ambassador James Larocco Retired Ambassador James Larocco “The absolute foundation of our country is economic security,” he said, then outlining threats to that security such as the rise of the ISIS terrorist group, instability and civil war in nations such as Syria and Iran, and the intractable issue of a peace for Israel and the Palestinian people.

During his 35-year career with the State Department, Larocco’s diplomatic posts also included director general of the Multinational Force and Observers on the Sinai Peninsula, principal deputy assistant secretary of state for Near East affairs, deputy chief of mission and charge d’affaires in Israel and deputy director of the Department of State Office of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh Affairs. He served in Cairo during the Camp David Treaty period and began his Foreign Service career in Saudi Arabia. He also served in the Far East, with assignments in Beijing and Taiwan.

His retirement has meant traveling the world conducting seminars, workshops and lectures at civilian and government agencies and think tanks. In addition to his ASU lectures, Larocco visited classrooms and met with students from different disciplines, answering questions about ISIS, the Foreign Service and its language training and talking about teaching cultural sensitivity. He emphasized both the challenges and the opportunities that lie in world events, especially in the fields of medicine and education.

“I’m usually talking to foreign audiences of professionals,” he said. “I was very impressed with the student body, with the informed questions. I felt they were able to absorb the information, process it very quickly and integrate it into their world view.”

His overall message was that the U.S. will always be deeply concerned with nations of the Middle East.

“The Middle East’s oil dollars flow to the U.S. as direct and indirect investments in U.S. companies, real estate and U.S. Treasury bonds, trillions of dollars invested,” Larocco said. “You have no idea how much they own.”

“The Middle East is a growth industry,” he said. “There’s never a dull moment.” But he cautioned: “Most of the news out of there is going to be bad so get used to it.”

Launched in 2003, the E. James Holland-Roy A. Harrell Jr. Foreign Affairs Speakers Program is dedicated to providing ASU students and the community with a broader worldview and exposing students to potential career opportunities in the Foreign Service.

The program is sponsored by the ASU College of Arts and Sciences, Center for Security Studies, University Center Program Council and the academic departments of Communication and Mass Media, Political Science and Philosophy, History, and English and Modern Languages.

For more information on Angelo State’s Distinguished Speaker Series, go online to www.angelo.edu/distinguished