Biden admin expected to announce Rob Malley as Iran envoy today or tomorrow (Updated: announced)

Updated: The State Department confirmed the appointment at 11pm

The Biden administration is expected to announce Rob Malley as its special envoy on Iran today or tomorrow, two foreign policy experts who consult with the Biden administration foreign policy team told Diplomatic.

Update 11:15pm: A State Department official, speaking not for attribution, confirmed the appointment to me:

“‪As the President and Secretary Blinken have said, if Iran comes back into full compliance with its obligations under the JCPOA, the United States would do the same thing and then use that as a platform to build a longer and stronger agreement that also addresses other areas of concern. But we are a long ways from that point as Iran is out of compliance on a number of fronts and there are many steps in the process that we will need to evaluate. We will coordinate closely with our allies and partners, as well as with Congress.  

As part of that, Secretary Blinken is building a dedicated team, drawing from clear-eyed experts with a diversity of views. Leading that team as our Special Envoy for Iran will be Rob Malley, who brings to the position a track record of success negotiating constraints on Iran’s nuclear program. The Secretary is confident he and his team will be able to do that once again.” Malley, who served as Obama’s NSC coordinator on the Middle East and North Africa, currently heads the International Crisis Group.

It was not clear if the announcement would come from the State Department or White House, and if in a written statement or podium announcement. A State Department spokesperson did not immediately respond to a query; nor did Malley.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken, speaking yesterday at his first State Department press conference since his confirmation as Biden’s top diplomat, reiterated previous statements that Biden has been clear  and consistent that if Iran would return to its commitments under the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, the US would return to the deal that Trump quit in 2018, and then work with partners to try to negotiate a follow-on deal and address issues left out of the pact, formally known as  the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

“President Biden has been very clear in saying that if Iran comes back into full compliance with its obligations under the JCPOA, the United States would do the same thing and then we would use that as a platform to build, with our allies and partners, what we called a longer and stronger agreement and to deal with a number of other issues that are deeply problematic,” Blinken told journalists at the State Department on Jan. 27.

“But we are a long ways from that point,” Blinken continued. “Iran is out of compliance on a number of fronts. And it would take some time, should it make the decision to do so, for it to come back into compliance in time for us then to assess whether it was meeting its obligations. So we’re not… there yet.”

Blinken also said the administration would be assembling a team of experts with a range of perspectives to work on the issue.

“If Iran decides to come back into compliance, I can tell you that we will…build a strong team of experts and we will bring to bear different perspectives on the issue,” he said.

Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations Majid Takht-Ravanchi, writing in the New York Times Wednesday (Jan. 27), said Iran was willing to roll back all the steps it has taken to protest the lack of sanctions relief to come back into full compliance with the deal, if the US lifts all the sanctions Trump imposed after he quit the deal. But Ravanchi warned, the window for a deal would soon close.

“Iran, for its part, has declared on numerous occasions that it is ready to return to the obligations initially agreed under the nuclear deal and expeditiously reverse the measures we have taken since, if all of the sanctions are withdrawn that were imposed and reimposed by the Trump administration after its illegal withdrawal from the accord,” Ravanchi, who served as one of the principal Iranian nuclear deal negotiators, wrote.

“The window is closing,” Ravanchi continued. “If the new administration does not meet its obligations and remove sanctions in short order, it will destroy the possibility for engagement within the nuclear agreement. But a full and honest lifting of the sanctions will create a new atmosphere that will help ease tensions in the region and beyond.”

Though Biden was only inaugurated last week, there is time pressure to try to secure Iran’s return to its 2015 nuclear deal limits before trying to negotiate a follow-on deal both because of Iran’s troubling recent expansion of its nuclear program under Trump’s “maximum pressure” policy, and also because Iran holds presidential elections in June in which relatively pragmatic two-term President Hassan Rouhani cannot run again and Iranian conservatives more skeptical of negotiating with the West are likely to prevail.

Iranian officials said this week that Iran would rescind implementation of the Additional Protocol, reducing international atomic energy agency snap inspections, the week of February 19, in compliance with a recent parliamentary law, if there has not been progress towards sanctions relief.

Update: Some 170 diplomatic, national security and human rights practitioners signed onto a statement in support of Malley’s appointment.