The 'Czar' Obama asked to defeat the Islamic State
Meet Robert Malley, the President's 'ISIL Czar'
By Michael Crowley
January 19, 2016
Politico
A few years before Syria’s civil war broke out, a Middle East researcher named Robert Malley paid at least two visits to Syrian President Bashar Assad to hear his views on the region.
Today, as President Barack Obama’s top adviser on Middle East issues, it’s Malley’s job to push Assad from power and help restore peace to a country where Malley himself has family roots.
That hugely influential — and challenging — role is a kind of redemption for the 52-year-old Malley, whose last encounter with Obama ended painfully. Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign severed its ties with Malley after reports that he’d met with members of the Palestinian militant group Hamas. Ardent Israel supporters piled on with charges that Malley, a former member of Bill Clinton’s Middle East team, harbored anti-Israel views. Top foreign policy hands denounced the “vicious” attacks, but the damage was done; the Obama campaign said that Malley never had a formal campaign role and never would.
Today, Malley holds one of the most important jobs in Obama’s White House, with a hand in everything from the Iran nuclear deal to the fight against the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL. In late November, Obama granted Malley a second title as his senior adviser for the counter-ISIL campaign — in effect an ISIS "czar" coordinating U.S. efforts against the terror group after complaints about an unclear chain of command.
Friends say Malley's return from exile is no surprise, given Malley's expertise and key beliefs he shares with Obama, including pragmatism and a willingness to seek common ground with enemies. “Rob brings a fundamentally realpolitik perspective to his job, and that’s well suited to the president’s worldview,” says one former colleague. “He’s capable of holding his nose.”
In that spirit, Malley has counseled Obama that, however despicable Assad may be, the U.S. has more urgent goals than fulfilling Obama’s vow that Assad be removed from power. Malley does not favor an outright partnership with Assad against the Islamic State, according to sources familiar with his thinking. But, as the former colleague put it: “He’s more inclined than some others to be flexible on the question of Assad’s durability.”
Since Malley took over the national security council’s Middle East job in March, the Obama administration has shown more tolerance for letting Assad hang on for several months, possibly into mid-2017. Obama is trying to broker a political settlement to the Syrian conflict but insists it must pave the way for Assad’s exit.
Other Obama administration officials, including Secretary of State John Kerry — who also met with Assad before the 2011 Syrian uprising began — are more impatient for the Syrian leader’s departure.
Discussions about Assad’s fate will continue on Jan. 25, at the next meeting of several nations pursuing a Syria peace settlement under the auspices of the United Nations. Obama administration officials say that both Iran and Saudi Arabia will attend the meeting, despite the furor over Riyadh’s Jan. 2 beheading of a pro-Iranian Shiite cleric. Iran is Assad’s most important backer, while the Saudis are determined to topple him.
More deep thinker than bureaucratic shark, Malley displays a touch of intellectual chic, with his wire-rimmed glasses and the slight accent of a fluent Arabic and French speaker who grew up in Paris. Malley’s father, Simon — born in Cairo to a Syrian-Jewish family — was a prominent Francophone journalist who celebrated national liberation movements, including that of the Palestinians. His mother, Barbara, was a Frenchwoman who represented the independence party of French colonial Algeria at the U.N.
The younger Malley has also published dozens of articles and a 1996 book on Algeria. His writings illustrate his belief that the Middle East defies black-and-white analysis and that presumed enemies can sometimes be allies for limited purposes.
“At bottom, Washington still sees the Middle East as divided between moderates and militants — an understanding that blinds it to much of what currently fuels the region's dynamics,” Malley and a co-author argued in Foreign Affairs in 2010. “Washington's nominal allies in the region often pursue objectives that are not aligned with the United States', and its foes sometimes promote goals compatible with Washington's.” The White House said Malley was unavailable to comment for this story.
Malley overlapped with Obama at Harvard Law School (though they were not close friends) and was a Rhodes scholar and Supreme Court clerk before joining the Clinton White House, working for national security adviser Sandy Berger and then joining the team that nearly struck an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal at Camp David in the summer of 2000.
Most Clinton administration officials later said those talks collapsed when the Palestinians walked away from a generous Israeli proposal. Malley infuriated parts of the pro-Israel community when he later challenged that conventional wisdom in published articles that suggested that Israeli officials had offered the Palestinians too little. Martin Peretz, then owner of The New Republic magazine, later declared Malley a “rabid hater” of Israel.
In the Bush era, Malley joined the International Crisis Group, a nonprofit conflict-resolution think tank for which he did extensive field research in the Middle East, including in Syria. Malley was “one of the few Americans who has taken the time and energy to understand Syria’s point of view and make contacts in Damascus when this was not easy to do,” wrote Joshua Landis, an Oklahoma University professor who closely tracks Syria, in 2008. Malley believed Assad might be persuaded to strike a peace deal with Israel that would pull Syria from Iran’s orbit.
Friends said it was no surprise that, when Democratic operatives flocked to Hillary Clinton's campaign in 2008, Malley signed up as a policy adviser with the more unconventional Obama. He was a likely candidate for a first-term Obama administration post until the May 2008 disclosure in a British newspaper of his Hamas contacts (which were also part of his ICG research). Pro-Israel critics, remembering his contrarian view on the 2000 peace process, questioned his motives. Malley argued that his ICG job required that he “meet with all sorts of savory and unsavory people and report on what they say.” And several national security heavyweights — including Berger and former George H.W. Bush adviser Dennis Ross — issued a statement calling claims Malley had “an anti-Israeli agenda … unfair, inappropriate, and wrong.”
But in an unforgiving campaign environment in which Obama was defending his own bona fides on Israel to some skeptical American Jews, the Obama campaign chose not to defend Malley.
Malley sat out Obama’s first term but joined the White House in March 2014, drawing complaints from Jewish groups like the Simon Wiesenthal Center and the Zionist Organization of America. Some groused about his ties to J Street, a lobbying group that promotes itself as a liberal alternative to the powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee. The ZOA called Malley an “Israel-basher” and lamented his suggestion in one published article that Obama had been too quick to rule out "containment" of a nuclear-armed Iran.
One Malley friend marveled at the continued criticism over his past Israel views: “These things have a half-life of 10,000 years,” he said. Others note that, if Malley was once to the left of the Democratic establishment on Israel's obligations, much of the party — including Obama — now agrees that the Palestinians are not the main obstacle to peace. "He articulated a view [about Israel in 2000] before it was acceptable to do so, but subsequent events have borne him out," said one friend and former colleague.
For all the criticism, Malley has some unimpeachable defenders. “I have a very good working relationship with Rob,” said Israel’s ambassador to the U.S., Ron Dermer. “He is a very knowledgeable and professional person who always listens to Israel's concerns even when he doesn't always agree.”
“I had a very negative opinion — until I met him,” said Elliott Abrams, who held a job similar to Malley’s in the George W. Bush White House. Abrams thinks Malley is too optimistic about the Palestinian appetite for peace with Israel, but he enjoys sparring with him.
“I've found him a person of real intellectual integrity," Abrams said. "Many of my friends on the right are amazed that we’re friends.”
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“At bottom, Washington still sees the Middle East as divided between moderates and militants — an understanding that blinds it to much of what currently fuels the region's dynamics,” Malley and a co-author argued in Foreign Affairs in 2010. “Washington's nominal allies in the region often pursue objectives that are not aligned with the United States', and its foes sometimes promote goals compatible with Washington's.” The White House said Malley was unavailable to comment for this story.
Malley overlapped with Obama at Harvard Law School (though they were not close friends) and was a Rhodes scholar and Supreme Court clerk before joining the Clinton White House, working for national security adviser Sandy Berger and then joining the team that nearly struck an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal at Camp David in the summer of 2000.
Most Clinton administration officials later said those talks collapsed when the Palestinians walked away from a generous Israeli proposal. Malley infuriated parts of the pro-Israel community when he later challenged that conventional wisdom in published articles that suggested that Israeli officials had offered the Palestinians too little. Martin Peretz, then owner of The New Republic magazine, later declared Malley a “rabid hater” of Israel.
In the Bush era, Malley joined the International Crisis Group, a nonprofit conflict-resolution think tank for which he did extensive field research in the Middle East, including in Syria. Malley was “one of the few Americans who has taken the time and energy to understand Syria’s point of view and make contacts in Damascus when this was not easy to do,” wrote Joshua Landis, an Oklahoma University professor who closely tracks Syria, in 2008. Malley believed Assad might be persuaded to strike a peace deal with Israel that would pull Syria from Iran’s orbit.
Friends said it was no surprise that, when Democratic operatives flocked to Hillary Clinton's campaign in 2008, Malley signed up as a policy adviser with the more unconventional Obama. He was a likely candidate for a first-term Obama administration post until the May 2008 disclosure in a British newspaper of his Hamas contacts (which were also part of his ICG research). Pro-Israel critics, remembering his contrarian view on the 2000 peace process, questioned his motives. Malley argued that his ICG job required that he “meet with all sorts of savory and unsavory people and report on what they say.” And several national security heavyweights — including Berger and former George H.W. Bush adviser Dennis Ross — issued a statement calling claims Malley had “an anti-Israeli agenda … unfair, inappropriate, and wrong.”
But in an unforgiving campaign environment in which Obama was defending his own bona fides on Israel to some skeptical American Jews, the Obama campaign chose not to defend Malley.
Malley sat out Obama’s first term but joined the White House in March 2014, drawing complaints from Jewish groups like the Simon Wiesenthal Center and the Zionist Organization of America. Some groused about his ties to J Street, a lobbying group that promotes itself as a liberal alternative to the powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee. The ZOA called Malley an “Israel-basher” and lamented his suggestion in one published article that Obama had been too quick to rule out "containment" of a nuclear-armed Iran.
One Malley friend marveled at the continued criticism over his past Israel views: “These things have a half-life of 10,000 years,” he said. Others note that, if Malley was once to the left of the Democratic establishment on Israel's obligations, much of the party — including Obama — now agrees that the Palestinians are not the main obstacle to peace. "He articulated a view [about Israel in 2000] before it was acceptable to do so, but subsequent events have borne him out," said one friend and former colleague.
For all the criticism, Malley has some unimpeachable defenders. “I have a very good working relationship with Rob,” said Israel’s ambassador to the U.S., Ron Dermer. “He is a very knowledgeable and professional person who always listens to Israel's concerns even when he doesn't always agree.”
“I had a very negative opinion — until I met him,” said Elliott Abrams, who held a job similar to Malley’s in the George W. Bush White House. Abrams thinks Malley is too optimistic about the Palestinian appetite for peace with Israel, but he enjoys sparring with him.
“I've found him a person of real intellectual integrity," Abrams said. "Many of my friends on the right are amazed that we’re friends.”
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