US President-elect Barack Obama is considering a bid to appoint intelligence advisor John O. Brennan as the new CIA Director-General.

The New York Times reported on Friday that Obama's senior advisor on intelligence and security issues, John O. Brennan, is a potential candidate for directing the Central Intelligence Agency.

Brennan, who served as the Chief of staff to former CIA chief George J. Tenet, has focused much of his 25-year career in intelligence on Middle Eastern issues.

In a recent address to the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences, Brennen criticized Washington's decades-long policy of portraying Iran as a threat.

“A critical step toward improved US-Iranian relations would be for US officials to cease public Iran-bashing,” The New York Times quoted Brennen as saying.

“This tactic that may have served short-term domestic political interests but that has heretofore been wholly counterproductive to US strategic interests,” added the intelligence expert.

He said that the 'politically charged and wholesale condemnation of Iranian policies' have not only borne negative results, but also widened the 30-year gap between Washington and Tehran.

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