DDonald Trump had appointed as special envoy to the Middle East his own son-in-law, Jared Kushner, whose movements in the region were therefore followed with great attention by all parties concerned. There ” vision ” of ” peace to prosperity that Kushner had developed in 2019 in Bahrain had also inspired the “Abraham Accords” signed the following year between Israel and four Arab states, including Bahrain. The kinship by marriage and the proximity displayed with the American president could only reinforce the weight of Kushner in a region where the decision-makers are quick to exploit any fault between the tenant of the White House and his designated representative.
Before him, Dennis Ross had marked nearly two decades of American diplomacy in the Middle East, by embodying, in the name of Bill Clinton, from 1993 to 2000, the American contribution to the Israeli-Arab “peace process”, then by supporting the George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq in 2003, before returning to the White House under Barack Obama from 2009 to 2011.
A veteran of the Trump administration
The contrast is flagrant between the media visibility of a Ross or a Kushner and the remarkable discretion of Brett McGurk, the current “coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa” at the American presidency. Mr. McGurk, now 49, began his career under the Bush administration, working from 2004 in Baghdad, then in the office he now heads at the White House. He is neither a career diplomat nor a specialist in the languages or cultures of a region which he approaches from the angle of global war on terror “. The difference is notable on this point with the “peace processors” who have succeeded one another alongside American presidents, for whom the priority went to Israeli-Arab rapprochement.
Mr. McGurk established a relationship of trust with Joe Biden when the latter, Barack Obama’s vice-president, assumed responsibility for the Iraqi file. Approached in 2012 to become ambassador to Baghdad, Brett McGurk was finally appointed, three years later, special envoy of the White House for the coalition led by the United States against the Islamic State (IS) organization.
Mr. McGurk considers that the United States must maintain a military presence in Syria to counter a possible resurgence of IS, but also the growing influence of Iran
In this sensitive position, Mr. McGurk is supposed to coordinate the action in Syria and Iraq of several dozen states against the jihadist threat. While Russia has just intervened directly in Syria, he endorses the tacit sharing of tasks which reserves to the United States and their allies most of the fight against ISIS, allowing the Kremlin to concentrate its strikes on the anti-Assad opposition. Mr. McGurk is also the cantor of the operational alliance between the American forces and the Syrian branch of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), even if it means creating serious tensions with President Erdogan’s Turkey. Mr. McGurk is clever enough to be kept in his post by Donald Trump, whose strategic rapprochement he supports with Saudi Arabia of Mohammed Bin Salman and the United Arab Emirates of Mohammed Bin Zayed. It contributes to the normalization of relations between Arabia and Iraq, hitherto deemed too close to Iran by Riyadh. Mr. McGurk, very much in court during the 2017-2019 offensives against the last jihadist strongholds, considers that the United States must maintain a military presence in Syria, to counter not only a possible resurgence of IS, but also the growing influence of Iran.
The relay of autocrats in Washington
In December 2018, Donald Trump announced the withdrawal of American troops from Syria, paving the way for an offensive by Turkey against the Kurdish allies of the United States in this country. Mr. McGurk resigns accusing its president of “not to be a commander-in-chief”of “making impulsive decisions” and “to expose the soldiers without protection”. The virulence of such criticism allows him to negotiate his rallying to Joe Biden and his promotion, in January 2021, to the White House. In addition, the blocking by Congress of diplomatic appointments permanently neutralizes the State Department, leaving Mr. McGurk the field open in the Middle East.
The new strongman of the United States in the region is ostensibly disinterested in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which President Biden would be content to see frozen, without going back on Trump’s acts of force, whether it is the installation of the United States embassy in Jerusalem or the closure, in the Holy City, of the American consulate hitherto in charge of Palestinian affairs. There is remarkable continuity in this respect between the Republican and Democratic administrations, a continuity that Brett McGurk willingly assumes, in the name of a regional status quo from which Washington would derive the greatest benefit.
It is in the same spirit that Mr. McGurk is trying to appease Biden’s resentment against Mohammed Bin Salman and Mohammed Bin Zayed, openly in favor, in 2020, of a re-election of Trump. He is accused in Washington of being the person to whom Middle Eastern autocrats turn for a willing ear “. He refuses that the United States remain neutral in the Yemeni conflict, considering that only a major setback by supporters of Iran can lead to a negotiated solution. He multiplies the trips, public or secret, in Saudi Arabia, pleading to turn the page on the assassination in Turkey, in atrocious conditions, of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi. While Joe Biden had pledged to deal in ” pariah Mohammed Ben Salman because of this crime, Brett McGurk plays a major role in the organization of the next regional tour of the American president who, all shame drunk, will publicly reconcile with the de facto leader of the Saudi kingdom.
A relative success for the very discreet “Mr. Middle East” of the White House.