Donald Trump had appointed his own son-in-law as a special envoy, Jared Kushner, whose trips in the region were therefore followed with great attention by all the parties concerned. The “vision” of “peace towards prosperity” that Kushner had developed in 2019 in Bahrain had also inspired the “Abraham agreements” signed the following year between Israel and four Arab states, including Bahrain. Alliance kinship and the proximity displayed with the American president could only strengthen the weight of Kushner in a region where decision -makers are quick to exploit any flaw 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, embodying, in the name of Bill Clinton, from 1993 to 2000, the American contribution to the “peace process” Israeli-Arab, then By supporting the invasion of Iraq by George W. Bush in 2003, before returning to the White House under Barack Obama from 2009 to 2011.
a veteran of the Trump administration
The contrast is obvious 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” to 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 in the White House. He is neither a career diplomat, nor a specialist in languages or cultures of a region which he approaches from the angle of the “global war against terror”. The difference is on this notable point with the “peace processors” who followed one another alongside the American presidents, for whom the priority was going to the Israeli-Arab reconciliation.
m. McGurk has a relationship of trust with Joe Biden when the latter, vice-president of Barack Obama, assumes responsibility for the Iraqi file. Pressed in 2012 to become an 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 Organization (EI).
At this sensitive post, 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, it endorses the tacit sharing of tasks that reserves in the United States and their most clear allies of the fight against IS, allowing the Kremlin to concentrate its strikes on the Anti-Assad opposition. Mr. McGurk is also the champion of the operational alliance between the American forces and the Syrian branch of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), even if it is to arouse serious tensions with Turkey of President Erdogan. Mr. McGurk is skilled enough to be maintained at his post by Donald Trump, whose strategic rapprochement with Saudi Arabia of Mohammed Ben Salman and the United Arab Emirates of Mohammed Ben Zayed. It contributes to the normalization of relations between Arabia and Iraq, hitherto deemed too close to Iran by Riyadh. Mr. McGurk, very in court during the 2017-2019 offensives against the last jihadist bastions, considers that the United States must maintain a military presence in Syria, to counter not only a possible IS resurgence, but also the growing influence of Iran.
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