Advisor Philip Gordon? What President Harris Could Mean for Kurds

What a re-elected President Donald Trump will do if he wins is well known. But what if Kamala Harris wins? It is easy to assume that Harris will continue the foreign policy of the Joe Biden administration, and this is not an incorrect assumption. Preventing Russia from winning the war in Ukraine will remain a priority for her administration, as will confronting China in “partial” trade and security battles based on specific cases.

However, there is no complete alignment in the details between the Biden administration and a potential Harris administration—if she wins. In the Middle East, the Biden administration is the least favorable of all U.S. administrations toward “Turkey’s friends.” This is unlikely to be the case with a Harris administration, which lacks independent experience in managing foreign affairs and will need to rely on advisors to determine what is most suitable for U.S. interests. It is widely known that a significant number of U.S. diplomats have not moved beyond a Cold War mentality.

For a country like Turkey, it would serve its interests to endorse U.S. positions rooted in Cold War principles, wherein the world is divided between allegiance to the United States or Russia. This scenario provides Ankara with leverage to manipulate both American and Russian sides by creating the impression that it could ally with either camp if its demands are unmet—such as occupying new territories in Syria and the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, supporting Azerbaijan in its conflict with Armenia, and facilitating its interventions in the African continent.

Just as the Trump administration included figures like James Jeffrey, the former envoy to Syria, who played a pivotal role in making concessions to Turkey at the expense of displacing the Kurds in Syria, Harris has an advisor who is similarly limited in understanding the world beyond Cold War frameworks—Philip Gordon.

Iranian-American academic Arash Azizi wrote a detailed article in The Atlantic discussing Harris’s potential policies in the Middle East, noting that the previous three presidents have attempted to extricate Washington from the region. However, like the song “Hotel California,” the Middle East does not let you leave even after you check out, Azizi remarked. Barack Obama and Trump struck historic deals intended to enhance stability in the region and allow the United States to shift its focus elsewhere. Yet unforeseen events have compelled both of them, along with Biden, to redirect their attention back to the region.

Harris can anticipate a similar scenario if she wins the presidential election, but her approach to the Middle East remains uncertain. Her legacy and experience do not provide a clear framework for shaping a political strategy. Consequently, those attempting to discern Harris’s foreign policy often look to Philip Gordon, her closest Middle East adviser and the national security advisor since 2022. Gordon served in both the Clinton and Obama administrations and has authored numerous articles and books. Martin Indyk, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel, noted last year that Harris “relies heavily on Philip’s advice because of his deep experience and knowledge of all the players” in the region.

Following Harris’s emergence as a potential Democratic candidate, some on the left quickly pointed to Gordon’s book, Losing the Long Game: The False Promise of Regime Change in the Middle East, as a potential indication of his support for a hands-off approach to forcibly replacing unfriendly regimes.

Gordon is a proponent of the Iran nuclear deal and played a key role in brokering it while serving as Obama’s Middle East coordinator from 2013 to 2015. A group of congressional Republicans wrote to Harris inquiring about Gordon’s connections to Robert Malley, the Biden administration’s former Iran envoy, who is under investigation for allegedly leaking classified information to Iran. (Gordon, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Malley were friends in the late 1990s.)

Gordon is a policy specialist who is highly respected in many circles and is well-liked by Europeans; he once translated a book by former French President Nicolas Sarkozy into English. His early interests reassured some Europeans who were initially concerned that Harris’s background might lead Washington to prioritize Asia. Gordon has served exclusively in Democratic administrations and spent the years of the George W. Bush and Trump administrations out of government, during which he was a vocal critic of Republican foreign policy.

When Israel went to war with Hezbollah in Lebanon in 2006, Gordon wrote an op-ed for The Financial Times, describing Washington’s support for the war as a “disaster.” A year later, he published Winning the Just War, a comprehensive critique of Bush’s Middle East policy that advocated for withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan, engagement with Iran through a mix of sanctions and negotiations, and efforts toward Arab-Israeli peace. This writing foreshadowed the main foreign policy goals of both Obama and Trump regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. However, it is important to note that Gordon’s vision for Arab-Israeli peace included a Palestinian component that was absent from Trump’s “Abraham Accords.” A closer examination of Gordon’s positions provides a clearer understanding of his perspectives on issues beyond the Palestinian situation.

In September 2016, the Washington Institute held a political seminar featuring Gordon, Dennis Ross, James Jeffrey, and other politicians who had recently returned from a joint bipartisan tour of Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Israel. During the discussion, Gordon made a striking and potentially dangerous statement regarding Turkey, where the failed coup attempt was dominating the news cycle. He urged the U.S. administration to attribute the coup to the U.S.-based preacher Fethullah Gülen. “The Americans are downplaying the significance and shocking impact of this summer’s coup attempt in Turkey,” he wrote. “Parliament was bombed, and Gülenists infiltrated the system, leaving conservatives and secularists/liberals alike in a state of fear about the threats posed by the movement. Yet the United States continues to downplay the coup, leaving many Turks feeling betrayed.” He further noted that President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was clearly overstepping his authority in response to the coup.

In the next part of his proposal, Gordon urged the U.S. administration to confront a significant scandal comparable to handing over Gülen to the Turkish government and to reduce reliance on U.S. partners in the fight against ISIS in Syria. He wrote, “Washington must eliminate the impression in the next phase that it is disinterested in requesting Gülen’s extradition, and it must engage with Ankara on how to cooperate against ISIS while decreasing its dependence on the Kurdish forces in Syria.”

After Trump assumed office, Gordon’s focus shifted from Turkey to Iran. In March 2017, he published an article in Foreign Affairs that did not mention Turkey and concentrated instead on the need to confront China and the dangers associated with abandoning the nuclear agreement with Iran. He suggested that the radical ideas emerging from Trump’s administration could lead to a potential war between Washington and Tehran. This concern became a reality when the administration later assassinated Qassem Soleimani, the commander of the Quds Force.

In January 2020, he co-authored an article in Foreign Affairs with Amanda Sloat titled “The Dangerous Collapse of the U.S.-Turkey Alliance.” In it, the authors referred to the quaint imagery of Emir Kusturica’s Underground, where a group of anti-Nazi fighters exists in an expansive underground bunker to sustain war production, continuing their efforts long after the war has ended.

Gordon remarked, “Less than a decade ago, the Obama administration—in which we served—was looking to build a model partnership with Turkey. There are high costs to treating Turkey now as an adversary, including pushing Ankara into the arms of U.S. adversaries like Iran and Russia. To prevent such a catastrophic outcome, both the Trump administration and Congress need to better understand the roots of the U.S.-Turkey conflict and avoid counterproductive actions that will only drive the two countries apart.”

By 2020, Gordon’s stance toward the Turkish government had shifted, as he became less sympathetic than he was in 2016. He argued against pitting the U.S. administration against the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and their allies, instead calling on Washington to facilitate negotiations between the Turkish government and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) regarding Kurdish issues in Turkey.

Gordon articulated these proposals amid exceptional circumstances in U.S.-Turkey relations. In July 2019, Turkey acquired the Russian S-400 missile systems despite strong objections from the U.S. By October, Turkey launched a military operation that ultimately captured Serê Kaniyê and Girê Spî. The U.S. government responded with outrage, implementing numerous punitive measures: the Trump administration halted the delivery of F-35 fighter jets to Turkey, sanctioned senior Turkish officials, and raised tariffs on Turkish steel exports. Meanwhile, Congress enacted legislation to impose stringent sanctions on Turkey’s defense industry, initiated an investigation into Erdoğan’s financial corruption, and passed a historic resolution recognizing the 1915 massacre of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire as genocide.

In his conclusion, Gordon remarked: “American interests would suffer if the relationship between the two countries were to collapse completely or if Turkey became a real adversary of the United States. The only parties who would benefit from a deeper rift between the two sides are Iran and Russia, which want to pull Turkey out of the Western camp. This is an outcome that the United States should avoid.”

Gordon’s conclusion leads us to a question raised by Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, a prominent think tank. In an article published in Foreign Affairs on August 19, Haass asked:

“Why do allies dare to challenge Washington? Because the risks are usually greater for them than for the United States. This disparity gives them leverage despite their dependence on American support. In many cases, the main issues of disagreement revolve around the ally’s security or economic interests, while for the United States they are just one of several priorities, making Washington less determined than the ally to resolve the conflict. Moreover, if Washington distances itself from an ally, no matter how justified its actions may be, some critics will claim that it is no longer a reliable partner, which could lead allies to act without regard for American interests and encourage adversaries to challenge it. Such considerations constrain the United States.”

What Harris’s advisor implies is a continuation of the miscalculation outlined by Haass; namely, that American diplomats may underestimate the significance of issues such as the U.S. presence in northern and eastern Syria, viewing them as unimportant and secondary—not worth risking Turkey’s discontent.

In October 2020, Gordon remarked on the history of American interventions in the Middle East, motivated by regime change, in another article published in Foreign Affairs. The deep-rooted American desire to address problems in the Middle East is honorable in many ways, but it can also be dangerous. The harsh reality—demonstrated by decades of painful experience in the region—is that some issues cannot be entirely resolved and attempts to do so can sometimes exacerbate the situation. A significant part of the problem is that American policymakers often lack a profound understanding of the countries involved, making them vulnerable to manipulation by parties with vested interests.

While he does not propose specific solutions to this dilemma, he opposes the idea of overthrowing regimes as well as the imposition of sanctions on human rights violators. This stance is not rooted in a surrender to tyrants but rather stems from the belief that such measures have proven ineffective in the long run, particularly due to the influence of “regional spoilers,” whom Gordon chooses not to name.

Harris’s lack of a grand vision for the Middle East may be a blessing. Currently, little information is available regarding the individuals Harris will appoint to shape her foreign policy, or even whether she plans to assemble a diverse team or one that adheres to a single political camp. However, as Arash Azizi notes, the combined experience of Gordon and Ilan Goldberg, a U.S.-Israeli Middle East adviser, suggests that Harris will likely resist the urge to disengage from a region perceived as problematic.

This could mark the beginning of a foreign policy team that acknowledges the necessity of engagement with the Middle East and works to integrate Middle East policies with strategies focused on other regions, such as China. Rather than viewing these regions as mutually exclusive options, this approach would aim to recalibrate foreign policy in accordance with the 2018 National Security Council document, which identified Russia and China as significant threats to future U.S. hegemony. Additionally, this strategy aligns with NATO doctrine, the large institution that is cautious about Washington’s pivot toward China—an area where the alliance has no direct involvement—and whose initial effectiveness was bolstered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.