SAN DIEGO—In September, Californian Amir Mohammad Estakhri joined Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's entourage at the United Nations, interpreting the leader's comments in TV interviews with Charlie Rose and Piers Morgan and in meetings with global diplomats.
Just days later, Mr. Estakhri, 41 years old, served as the voice for a very different international player—U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta—in a telephone discussion with his Afghan counterpart.

With such jobs, the Tehran-born linguist occupies a highly unusual position—working, visibly, on behalf of both the U.S. and Iran.

Since 2005, the Iranian-American has often appeared alongside Mr. Ahmadinejad during visits to the U.S. During those years, Mr. Estakhri has also interpreted for top American officials in the administrations of Barack Obama and George W. Bush. His fluency in Iran's Persian language, Farsi, and its Afghan offshoot, Dari, made him an effective contractor to the State Department and Pentagon.

Among the Americans he has served: former Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano, and retired Gen. David Petraeus, both when he was Central Intelligence Agency director and head of the U.S. Central Command.

"My background allows me to easily switch between two worlds," said Mr. Estakhri, in an interview at a suburban mall near his home in San Diego. "Iran and the U.S. are much less different than people realize."

A number of State Department and Pentagon officials privately voiced surprise that an interpreter could be working for both sides amid the Tehran-Washington conflict. "We must not have many people who can actually speak these languages," said a Defense Department official who has worked in Afghanistan.

A senior State Department official dismissed any concerns that Mr. Estakhri's activities represented a security risk. The interpreter signed a standard agreement not to divulge any sensitive information derived from his work, and in any case could translate only "nonsensitive" information because he didn't have a top-level security clearance, the official said.

"Mr. Estakhri is a contractor, not a permanent employee of the State Department," the official said. The Pentagon deferred questions about Mr. Estakhri to the State Department.

The interpreter's scrapbook includes photos of himself with Mr. Ahmadinejad, Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi, and the Iranian government's spokesman, Ramin Mehmanparast. A spokesman for Iran's mission to the U.N. declined to comment about Mr. Estakhri.

Mr. Estakhri has lived in California since 1986, when he was 15. His late father was a theologian and an adviser to the last Iranian monarch, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi; the elder Estakhri was briefly detained after the Islamic Revolution, before seeking refuge in Europe and eventually joined his family in California.

Mr. Estakhri said he led a relatively obscure life there until the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq proved to be a boon for the linguistic-services company he runs with his brother. Mr. Estakhri gained certification from the State Department's Office of Language Services and found his services in demand.

He accompanied visiting Afghan military and judicial delegations and Iranian medical and sports groups, sponsored by the State Department, as they toured the U.S. and sought to understand American culture. Mr. Estakhri sat in the middle of secretive 2007 discussions between Iranian and American officials in Baghdad that sought to calm the violence in Iraq. Last summer in Baghdad, he interviewed Iranian asylum seekers as part of a U.S. government task force.

Mr. Estakhri concurrently began working with Iran's Islamist government following the 2005 election of Mr. Ahmadinejad, a former mayor of Tehran who has shown a love for the international stage. When Iran's 56-year-oldleader first visited New York, the Iranian government lacked a linguist to simultaneously interpret his first international television interview, with CNN's Christiane Amanpour, according to Mr. Estakhri. CNN was put in touch with Mr. Estakhri.

Since then, he has become a regular beside Mr. Ahmadinejad and other senior Iranian officials as they visit New York and conduct their U.N. business, including meetings with foreign emissaries, dinners with Iranian-American academics as well as trips to an Apple computer store.

In May, Mr. Estakhri emphatically delivered the position of Iran's chief economics minister, in a New York interview with The Wall Street Journal, that Iran wouldn't bend to Washington's economic sanctions. "The more they ratchet up the pressure on the sanctions, it will be like a very strong punch against a wall," said Shamseddin Hosseini, as interpreted by Mr. Estakhri.

At a media conference In September, Mr. Ahmadinejad responded—via Mr. Estakhri—to a question about the fatwa condemning British writer Salman Rushdie to death, suggesting it was best to keep the New York location of the famed author secret "for his own safety." Many journalists in the room viewed the statement as a not very subtle threat.

"He was just joking," the interpreter says. "Many foreigners don't understand Ahmadinejad's personality or culture," he said.

As the linguist was finishing up his New York work, the State Department inquired about his services for the next project: An introductory October conversation between Mr. Panetta and his new Afghan counterpart, Bismallah Khan Mohammadi.

Patched in from his home-office near a California beach, Mr. Estakhri alternated between English and Dari and expressed Mr. Panetta's commitment to working with Mr. Mohammadi, the interpreter said. The Pentagon confirmed the call took place. It declined further comment.

Mr. Estakhri said he plans a documentary set in Iran to give voice to its leaders and people. He hopes it will run on American network television. "Despite what many in Washington believe," he said, "the Islamic Republic isn't going anywhere and can't be changed from outside."

By The Wall Street Journal

 

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