Robert Malley appointment as Iran envoy attracts mixed response

Joe Biden has named Robert Malley as special envoy for Iran. He was a key member of former President Barack Obama's team that negotiated the nuclear accord with Iran and world powers, an agreement that Donald Trump abandoned in 2018, despite strong opposition from Washington's European allies.

Malley’s appointment puts him at the forefront of Biden's efforts to find a way to deal with Iran after years of worsening relations under former President Donald Trump, who not only pulled out of a 2015 international nuclear deal with Tehran, but also re-imposed crippling economic sanctions.

When Malley's name first surfaced in news reports as a leading candidate for the post, he drew criticism from some Republican lawmakers and pro-Israel groups who expressed concern that he would be soft on Iran and tough on Israel, but a number of foreign policy veterans rushed to his defense.

It's a positive sign from Biden that he's really willing to revitalize American diplomacy. For too long, US foreign policy has been militarily very muscular, but diplomatically very weak," Sina Toossi, a senior research analyst at the National Iranian American Council (NIAC) told Middle East Eye.

Toossi said the humiliations that Iran had faced in recent years - including the US departure from the JCPOA, the killing of top Iranian general Qassem Soleimani and the assassination of nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh - make it difficult for the Iranian government to take the first step towards reviving the JCPOA.

Matt Duss, a foreign-policy adviser to Senator Bernie Sanders, lauded Biden for refusing to back down in the face of attacks against Malley's candidacy.

"Great news, there's no one better than Rob to make this policy succeed, which is why the hardliners didn't like the pick," Duss wrote on Twitter. "Also very good that Biden stood strong with this choice and disregarded their smear campaign. It won't be their last."

Khaled Elgindy, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, also praised the announcement, calling the nomination "great news". "Malley is a highly skilled and thoughtful negotiator with extensive knowledge and an empathic disposition - literally the polar opposite of every member of the previous administration’s Middle East team of clowns," Elgindy said in a Twitter post.

Senator Tom Cotton, a staunch conservative, had led criticism against Malley, accusing him of being sympathetic to the Iranian government and having "animus towards Israel".

Malley is an American lawyer, political scientist and specialist in conflict resolution, who was the lead negotiator on the 2015 Iran nuclear deal known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). He being once again tasked to bring the United States and Iran into compliance with the Iran deal abandoned by President Trump.

Previously, Malley was President and CEO of the International Crisis Group, a Washington, DC, committed to preventing wars. Prior to holding that title, he served at the National Security Council under Barack Obama from February 2014 until January 2017.

In 2015, the Obama administration appointed Rob Malley as its "point man" on the Middle East, leading the Middle East desk of the National Security Council. In November 2015, Malley was named as President Obama's new special ISIS advisor.

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

Malley 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 divided 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. Later, other scholars and former officials voiced views similar to those of Malley.

Malley and his views have come under attack from other critics, such as Martin Peretz of the magazine The New Republic, who has opined that Malley is "anti-Israel", a "rabid hater of Israel. No question about it” and that several of his articles in the New York Review of Books were "deceitful."

On the conservative webzine The American Thinker, Ed Lasky asserted that Malley "represents the next generation of anti-Israel activism."