Welcome to Hard Talk on the BBC World Service with me, Stephen Sacker.

My guest today has been a key figure in US Middle East policymaking under three Democrat presidents.

Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and now Joe Biden have all tapped into Robert Malley's long experience of delicate diplomatic dealings in Israel, the Arab world and Iran.

Over the years, he has faced heavy criticism from the Republican right for being too soft, too progressive,

too ready to negotiate with militant groups like Hamas.

However, when Joe Biden assumed the presidency and sought to revive the nuclear deal with Iran

that had been junked by President Trump, he turned to Robert Malley to serve as his Iran envoy.

Now, that was two years ago.

Since then, whatever hopes there had been of a reset in relations with Tehran have

been comprehensively dashed. Talks to restore the so-called JCPOA nuclear deal are all but dead.

The Iranian regime is currently brutally suppressing a nationwide protest movement and is providing

Putin's invasion force in Ukraine with vital

military assistance. And if all that weren't enough to ensure a new level of tension with Iran,

Israel has a new extreme right-wing government led by bin Ladennyahu, which is committed

to neutralizing Iran's capacity to build a nuclear weapon.

So, where does Robert Malley, the arch diplomat, go from here?

Well, he joins me now from Washington, D.C. Welcome to Hard Talk.

Thanks, sir, for having me.

That's great to have you on the show. You've had two years now trying to use diplomacy

to defuse the tensions, tackle the differences with Iran. Is it time to acknowledge that that

diplomatic effort has failed? Well, what I'd say is diplomacy never ends, even as we are doing other

things, and we've always

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