Robert Malley: Who is US Envoy to Iran?

US President Joe Biden appointed Robert Malley, an American Jew of Egyptian origin, as a Special Envoy to Iran. He is tasked with trying to ease diplomatic tensions with Iran and rein in its nuclear program by compliance with the original pact.

Malley is a veteran politician who was a key member of Barack Obama's team in negotiating the nuclear deal with Iran and world powers that was concluded in 2015 that the former President, Donald Trump, withdrew from in 2018 despite strong opposition from Washington's allies.

Career

Malley was born in 1963 in the United States. He worked in law and conflict resolution and held the position of director of the Middle East and North Africa program at the International Crisis Group in Washington.

He worked as a special aide to former US President Bill Clinton, and as an assistant to the former national security advisor Sandy Berger. He also was a director of the Department of Democracy and Rights Human and Humanitarian Affairs at the National Security Council.

Palestinian Cause

As Special Assistant to President Clinton, he was a member of the U.S. peace team and helped organize the 2000 Camp David Summit.

Malley is considered, by some, to be an expert on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and has written extensively on this subject advocating rapprochement with Hamas and Muslim Brotherhood.

He was criticized by supporters of Israel after co-authoring an article in the July 8, 2001 edition of The New York Review of Books arguing that the blame for the failure of the 2000 Camp David Summit should be pided among all three leaders who were present at the summit, Arafat, Barak, and Bill Clinton, not just Arafat, as was suggested by some mainstream policy analysts.

Family

Malley is the son of a left-wing journalist of Egyptian-Syrian origin, Simon Malley, an advocate of third world issues and anti-colonialism.

Father Simon was born in Cairo in May 1923 to a Syrian Jewish family who fled to Egypt and worked for Gomhoria newspaper. He was a leftist and supported the Egyptian revolution. The newspaper nominated him to take over its office in New York and cover the work of the United Nations.

In New York, Simon met his wife Barbara, who was working in the United Nations mission to the Algerian National Liberation Front.

In 1969, the elder Malley moved his family—including son Robert—to France, where he founded the leftist magazine Africasia (later known as Afrique Asia).

His family remained in France until 1980, when then-French president Valéry Giscard d'Estaing briefly expelled Simon Malley from the country to New York, due to his hostility towards Western colonialism and Israel.