As a foreign service officer with the U.S. State Department, Leyth Swidan ’16 gets to choose his own adventure. As his destinations change, his objective remains the same: ensuring that U.S. foreign policy reflects the diversity of the people it serves.
Swidan, an Arab American Muslim who experienced the consequences of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East during his formative years while visiting family in Jordan, is intent on quashing negative misconceptions directed against Arab Americans and common stereotypes of the Middle East in foreign policy formulation.
“I’m working to improve the lives of Arabs and Muslims alike,” he says, “while also rebuilding trust and restoring our credibility in the Middle East.”
Based in Washington, D.C., Swidan works on U.S.-Saudi Arabia bilateral relations and building support for U.S. policy priorities across the Gulf.
Before joining the Saudi Arabia desk, Swidan served in the office of the Assistant Secretary of Near Eastern Affairs, starting five days before Oct. 7, 2023. In the time since, he has had a front-row seat to decision-making while advancing U.S. efforts to end the Israel-Hamas conflict. He’s also been supporting and accompanying the Assistant Secretary across the Middle East to discuss post-conflict plans in Gaza with Arab foreign ministers.
In this role, Swidan finds his intersectional identities deeply intertwined with his work on empowering marginalized communities. “I see myself having one foot in the United States and one foot in the Middle East and being a bridge between the two,” he says.
Given his Arab American identity and his fluency in Arabic, Swidan majored in international relations and Middle Eastern studies at Pomona.
He learned about U.S. foreign policy from Mietek P. Boduszynski, associate professor of politics, and interned in Washington, D.C. four successive summers. He also studied abroad in Jordan and London his entire junior year, immersing himself in those countries’ respective, and starkly different, cultures.
While in London, Swidan was named a Thomas R. Pickering Foreign Affairs Fellow. The fellowship, funded by the State Department to diversify the Foreign Service and highlight the faces of America to foreign audiences, required him to complete graduate school and commit a minimum of five years to working in the State Department.
“It was a scary commitment to make as a 20-year-old,” Swidan says. “But in my heart, I knew it was what I always wanted to do. Pomona’s liberal arts education prepared me to take on the complex array of policy areas the Foreign Service covers, grounding me with academic preparation to apply critical thinking and cross-cultural understanding.”
Swidan earned his graduate degree from Columbia University in 2018 and later completed two-year assignments in both Kuwait and Denmark.
In Kuwait, he gave others the same opportunities a U.S. consular officer gave his parents 40 years ago when they immigrated to the United States from Jordan. In Denmark, Swidan was often asked how the United States can advance human rights globally while not practicing what it preaches domestically—a question he says he constantly grappled with as the human rights officer.
“When there’s a disconnect between the way we practice our values domestically and the way we promote our values abroad, it hamstrings our diplomatic efforts,” he says, adding that despite that gap, he “regularly acknowledged the flaws of U.S. democracy and shared lessons learned from home while ensuring the U.S.-Denmark partnership was not only anchored in interests but also in values.”
As the State Department tries to reflect the fullness of the American experience, Swidan covets holding the door open for others and is proud to showcase America’s diversity to the world.
“This job is an opportunity to dispel misconceptions and show what it means to be American,” he says. “There’s not one way to look or talk, and I get to represent one historically underrepresented segment of America to the world as the child of immigrants.”
In addition to his day job, Swidan is involved in the Arab Americans in Foreign Affairs Agencies employee organization at the State Department, where he promotes Arab culture through education and events among employees to advance U.S.-Middle East relations.
In June, Swidan was named an awardee of the —a celebration of accomplished young Arab Americans nationwide in myriad professional fields. And last month, the Middle East Policy Council named him a in recognition of his contributions to U.S.-Middle East relations.
“I’ve learned no nation is perfect,” Swidan says. “They’re all working to learn from one another and work toward a more perfect world. I’m doing what I can with what I have and using my position of power to push things for the better.”