Harold Rhode is a specialist on the Middle East who worked at the Office of Net Assessment, an in-house think tank for the Pentagon. Rhode retired in 2010 after 28 years as a Pentagon analyst.[1]
Rhode has a PhD from Columbia in Islamic studies and Middle Eastern history. He speaks Persian, Hebrew, Arabic and Turkish.[2] Rhode was studying in a university in Iran during the early stages of the revolution that brought Ayatollah Khomeni to power.[3][4]
Rhode was a subject of a probe conducted by the Senate Intelligence Committee for a U.S. government-authorized meeting he and Larry Franklin had in Rome in late 2001 with Manucher Ghorbanifar, who was part of the Iran-Contra scandal.[5][6]