Robin Raphel

American diplomat (born 1947)

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. At the time, Pakistan had not tested its nuclear capabilities, opting for a policy of nuclear opacity. 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. 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 left the State Department's South Asia section in late June 1997. 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. 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. Unocal, an American company that was one of the many international oil companies seeking the rights to build this pipeline, entered into negotiations with Taliban, to secure protection for the pipeline. Raphel spoke in favor of the pipeline project on trips to Afghanistan and Pakistan in April and August 1996. Her meeting with Taliban leaders in 1996 to advocate for a pipeline project earned her the sobriquet "Lady Taliban" in the Indian press. After Raphel's successor Karl Inderfurth took over, the pipeline deal collapsed, however.

Raphel entered her State Department assignment at a time when U. S. Pakistan relations were strained. Sanctions imposed by George H. W. Bush over concerns about Pakistan's burgeoning nuclear program under the Pressler Amendment banned all military ties, supply of military hardware and jet fighters, and cut off political relations with Islamabad. Bhutto sought rapprochement with the Clinton White House, visiting the United States in April 1995. Bhutto, working with Pakistan's envoy to Washington at the time, Dr. Maleeha Lodhi, sought Congressional support for an exception to the Pressler Amendment that would allow Pakistan to take delivery of military equipment that it had already paid for. This exception to Pressler (known as the Brown Amendment) was strongly supported by Raphel and by other Clinton administration officials. It was put into effect in November 1995, permitting the one time transfer to Pakistan of $368M of equipment that had been blocked by the Pressler Amendment.

Raphel became unpopular with Indian media in 1993, after publicly describing Kashmir as a "disputed territory." India's position is that Jammu and Kashmir, having been ceded to India in 1947 by their maharajah, are an integral part of India's territory. Raphel's advocacy for negotiation between India and Pakistan was perceived as an attack on India's territorial integrity. Raphel's decades of work with Pakistan led Indian media to consider her a "brazenly pro Pakistan partisan in Washington." President Zine El Abidine visited the Clinton White House in 1999. One month later, however, Cassidy canceled the Pakistan lobbying contract after Pakistan's president Pervez Musharraf declared emergency rule. Raphel continued her role at Cassidy, lobbying for other international clients who included Bangladeshi politician Anwar Hossain Manju and the Iraqi Red Crescent Organization, according The Hill. Her focus was to allocate U. S. resources committed under the proposed Kerry Lugar Bill. That legislation was enacted in late 2009, tripling civilian U. S. aid to Pakistan to approximately $1.5 billion annually. Raphel's responsibilities included oversight of spending for law enforcement, improvements in Pakistan's judicial system and education programs to raise the country's literacy standards. She worked with USAID in a number of Pakistan's border areas in particular to distribute non military assistance.

In 2023, she was awarded Hilal e Pakistan,Pakistan's second highest civil award, which recognizes "meritorious contribution to the national interests of Pakistan."

In 1972, Raphel married Arnold Lewis Raphel, later Ambassador to Pakistan, in Tehran. They divorced ten years later. Her subsequent marriage to Leonard A. Ashton (1990 ?) also ended in divorce. She has two daughters: Alexandra and Anna.