Robert Malley

Robert Malley (born 1963) 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).

Malley was born in 1963 to Barbara (née Silverstein) Malley, a New Yorker who worked for the United Nations delegation of the Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN), and her husband, Simon Malley (1923–2006), a prominent Egyptian journalist of Syrian descent who grew up in Egypt and worked as a foreign correspondent for Al Gomhuria.

The elder Malley spent time in New York, writing about international affairs, particularly about nationalist, anti-imperial movements in Africa, and made a key contribution by putting the FLN on the world map.

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).

Robert attended École Jeannine Manuel, a prestigious bilingual school in Paris, and graduated in the same class (1980) as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

The Malleys 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 French policies in Africa.

Malley attended Yale University, and was a 1984 Rhodes Scholar at Magdalen College, Oxford, where he earned a D.Phil. in political philosophy.

There he wrote his doctoral thesis about Third-worldism and its decline.

Malley continued writing about foreign policy, including extended commentary about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

He earned a J.D. at Harvard Law School, where he met his future wife, Caroline Brown.

Another fellow law school student was Barack Obama.

In 1991–1992, Malley clerked for Supreme Court Justice Byron White, while Brown clerked for Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.

Malley was Director for Democracy, Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs at the National Security Council from 1994 to 1996 and Program Director for Middle East and North Africa at the International Crisis Group and Assistant to National Security Advisor Sandy Berger from 1996 to 1998.

Malley served in the Clinton administration as Director for Democracy, Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs at the National Security Council from 1994 to 1996.

In that post he helped coordinate refugee policy, efforts to promote democracy and human rights abroad and U.S. policy toward Cuba.

From 1996–1998 he was Executive Assistant to National Security Advisor Sandy Berger.

As Special Assistant to President Clinton from 1998 to 2001, he was a member of the U.S. peace team and helped organize the 2000 Camp David Summit.

In October 1998, Malley was appointed Special Assistant to President Clinton for Arab-Israeli Affairs, a post he held until the end of the administration in 2001.

After the Clinton Administration, Malley became Senior Policy Advisor for the Center for Middle East Peace and Economic Development in Washington, D.C. He later became Program Director for Middle East and North Africa at the International Crisis Group in Washington, D.C., directing analysts based in Amman, Cairo, Beirut, Tel Aviv and Baghdad.

Malley's team covered events from Iran to Morocco, with a heavy focus on the Arab–Israeli conflict, the situation in Iraq, and Islamist movements throughout the region.

Malley also covered developments in the United States that affect policy toward the Middle East.

According to Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign, Malley provided informal advice to the campaign in the past without having any formal role in the campaign.

On May 9, 2008, the campaign severed ties with Malley when the British Times reported that Malley had been in discussions with the militant Palestinian group Hamas, listed by the U.S. State Department as a terrorist organization.

In response, Malley told The Times he had been in regular contact with Hamas officials as part of his work with the International Crisis Group.

"My job with the International Crisis Group is to meet with all sorts of savory and unsavory people and report on what they say. I've never denied whom I meet with; that's what I do", Malley told NBC News, adding that he informs the State Department about his meetings beforehand and briefs them afterward.

As of 2010, the couple has two sons, Miles and Blaise, and one daughter, Frances.

After his Supreme Court clerkship, Malley became a Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations where he published The Call From Algeria: Third Worldism, Revolution, and the Turn to Islam—a book that charts Algeria's political evolution from the turn of the 20th century to the present, exploring the historical and intellectual underpinnings of the crisis in Algeria.

He served in the National Security Council under President Barack Obama from 2014 to 2017.

The New York Times reported on February 18, 2014, that Malley was joining the Obama administration to consult on Persian Gulf policy as senior director of the National Security Council.

In 2015, the Obama administration appointed 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.

After leaving the Obama administration, Malley was President and CEO of the International Crisis Group, a Brussels non-profit committed to preventing wars.

In January 2021, President Joe Biden named Malley as special U.S. envoy for Iran.

He was tasked with bringing the United States and Iran into compliance with the JCPOA after it had been abandoned by former president Donald Trump.

In late 2023 it was widely reported that Malley's loyalties were to Tehran, not Washington, based on joint reporting by Iran International and Semafor on a 2003-2021 trove of Iranian diplomats' emails.

In 2023, Malley's security clearance was revoked and he was placed on a paid, then an unpaid leave of absence pending an investigation into his handling of classified information.

The investigation was later referred to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

On April 6, 2015, Malley replaced Philip Gordon as Special Assistant to the President and White House Coordinator for the Middle East, North Africa and the Gulf Region.

Malley was the lead U.S. negotiator on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, signed on July 14, 2015, which aimed to limit Iran's nuclear activities and ensure international inspections of its nuclear facilities in exchange for lifting economic sanctions.

In describing the negotiating challenges, Malley later wrote in The Atlantic, "The real choice in 2015 was between achieving a deal that constrained the size of Iran’s nuclear program for many years and ensured intrusive inspections forever, or not getting one, meaning no restrictions at all coupled with much less verification.