Roebuck, William V., 1954-

<p>William V. Roebuck (born 1954) is an American ambassador who served as United States Ambassador to Bahrain from 2015 to 2017 and is currently the Deputy Special Envoy to the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS.</p>

<p>Bill Roebuck, who is from Rocky Mount, North Carolina, graduated from high school in 1974. He subsequently attended Wake Forest University, receiving a Bachelor's and Master's degree before attending the University of Georgia Law School.</p>

<p>He was confirmed as ambassador on November 18, 2014 and presented his credentials on January 20, 2015. He succeeded Thomas C. Krajeski and was succeeded by Justin Siberell.</p>

<p>In August 2018, State Department representative William Roebuck traveled to the cities of Manbij and Kobani, both situated in Aleppo Governorate, as well as the town of Al-Shaddadah in Hasakah Governorate. He was later due to visit Deir ez-Zor Governorate which is held by U.S.-backed Kurdish forces. "We are prepared to stay here, as the president Donald Trump has made clear," he said after meeting with Democratic Federation of Northern Syria.</p>

<p>In November 2019, Roebuck "criticized the Trump administration for not trying harder to prevent Turkey’s military offensive" in northern Syria.</p>

<p>In November 2019, the New York Times reported that Ambassador William Roebuck, the senior U.S. diplomat in Syria drafted a memorandum to the U.S. Special Envoy to Syria James Jeffrey that stated directly that the U.S. should have done more to stop the Turkish invasion into Syria. He said “Turkey’s military operation in northern Syria, spearheaded by armed Islamist groups on its payroll, represents an intentioned-laced effort at ethnic cleansing and what can only be described as war crimes and ethnic cleansing.” He also warned that “we — with our local partners — have lost significant leverage and inherited a shrunken, less stable platform to support both our CT efforts and the mission of finding a comprehensive political solution for Syria.” The article said the Roebuck was the "second senior American official in the past week who has questioned whether the United States pressed hard enough with measures like joint American-Turkish ground and air patrols along the border, to avert a Turkish offensive into northern Syria" with the first official being Deputy Assistant Defense Secretary Michael P. Mulroy in an interview with Defense One.</p>

<p>On September 18, 2014, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved the nomination of William V. Roebuck as the next U.S. ambassador to Bahrain. If approved by the full Senate, it will be the first ambassadorial posting for Roebuck, a career Foreign Service officer.</p>

<p>Roebuck is from Rocky Mount, North Carolina, and graduated from Rocky Mount High School in 1974. He attended Wake Forest University, earning a B.A. in English literature in 1978 and an M.A. in the same subject in 1981. He worked on the college newspaper while an undergrad, and in 1982 he published <i>Songs of Experience: Three African Novelists on Modern Africa</i> about Chinua Achebe of Nigeria, Peter Abrahams of South Africa and Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o of Kenya.</p>

<p>Roebuck got an early start on diplomacy, joining the Peace Corps in 1978 and serving as a volunteer in Sassandra, Côte D’Ivoire. In 1982, he began teaching English in Ta’if, Saudi Arabia, staying there for five years. Roebuck then went to law school at the University of Georgia, earning his J.D. in 1992. He joined the Foreign Service the same year.</p>

<p>His first assignment was as a consular officer in Kingston, Jamaica, until 1994. In 1995, Roebuck had his first posting to the Middle East, as a political officer in the consulate in Jerusalem. He returned to Washington in 1997 to become a staff assistant to the assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs. The following year, he began to study Arabic at the Foreign Service institutes in Washington and Tunis, Tunisia.</p>

<p>Roebuck began an eventful tour as political officer at the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv in 2000. He worked on political issues in the Gaza Strip. On October 15, 2003, a convoy in which he was riding in Gaza City drove over a buried improvised explosive device (IED). Three American private security officers were killed in the explosion. Roebuck had been on his way to interview potential Fulbright scholars.</p>

<p>Roebuck was named political section chief at the U.S. Embassy in Damascus, Syria, in 2004 and for the last year of his tour was acting deputy chief of mission. He was brought home in 2007 as deputy office director in the Office of Arabian Peninsula Affairs. He served a tour in Baghdad from July 2009 until August 2010 as deputy political counselor at the embassy there. His main emphasis was providing support for national elections in March 2010 He returned to Washington in September 2010 as director of the Office of Maghreb Affairs, a post he held until December 2012.</p>

<p>Roebuck was sent to Libya in January 2013 in the wake of the attacks on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi to serve as chargé d’affaires at the embassy in Tripoli, staying there for six months.</p>

<p>After that, he came home to be deputy assistant secretary of state for Egypt and Maghreb Affairs. In February 2014, he and other Americans walked out of a Tunisian celebration of the country’s new constitution after Iranian parliamentary speaker Ali Larijani criticized the United States for “supporting dictatorships” during the Arab Spring uprisings.</p>

<p>During his confirmation hearing for the Bahrain job, Roebuck told committee members that he wouldn’t abide by Bahrain’s law that a government representative be present for meetings between embassy personnel and members of that country’s opposition party. Much of his work there figures to be focused on human rights concerns in the country on which the United States is dependent for basing ships.</p>

<p>Roebuck occasionally writes poetry for publication in the Foreign Service Journal. In the September 2011 issue of the journal he published an article titled “Bloomsday in Baghdad: Reading Joyce in Iraq.” He and his wife, Ann, have one son. Roebuck speaks Arabic and French.</p>

<p>Ambassador William “Bill” Roebuck is currently the Deputy Special Envoy to the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS, and a Senior Advisor to the Special Representative for Syria Engagement Ambassador James Jeffrey. Prior to his appointment, Ambassador Roebuck served as a Senior Advisor to Special Presidential Envoy Brett McGurk from January to December, 2018.</p>

<p>William Roebuck was nominated in June 2014 to be Ambassador to the Kingdom of Bahrain and the Senate confirmed his appointment in November. He arrived in Bahrain on January 8, 2015.</p>

<p>Prior to his nomination to lead U.S. diplomatic efforts in Bahrain, Roebuck was appointed Deputy Assistant Secretary for Maghreb Affairs in January 2013 and assumed additional responsibility for Egypt Affairs in January 2014. He served as Chargé d’Affaires in Tripoli for six months from January to June 2013, earning the Ryan C. Crocker Award for Outstanding Leadership in Expeditionary Diplomacy for this assignment later that year.</p>

<p>From September 2010 until December 2012, he served as Director for the Office of Maghreb Affairs in the State Department’s Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs. Roebuck served as Deputy Political Counselor at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad from July 2009 to August 2010, covering Iraq’s external relations and leading the Embassy’s and the resident international community’s efforts to support the critical March 2010 national elections.</p>

<p>Roebuck served as the Deputy Office Director for Arabian Peninsula Affairs from 2007 to 2009. From 2004-2007, he served as the Political Counselor at the U.S. Embassy in Damascus. In his last year of that assignment, Roebuck served as the acting Deputy Chief of Mission. Prior to his assignment in Syria, he covered political issues in the Gaza Strip, while assigned to the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv from 2000 to 2003. He served in Washington as staff assistant to the Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs from 1997-98.</p>

<p>Prior to joining the State Department, Roebuck worked as an English teacher and school administrator in Taif, Saudi Arabia from 1982-87. He served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Cote d’Ivoire from 1978-81, teaching English in a small coastal town. Roebuck speaks French and Arabic.</p>

<p>He hails from Rocky Mount, North Carolina and received his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in English literature from Wake Forest University in 1978 and 1981, and his law degree from the University of Georgia in 1992.</p>