‘Consistently Wrong’: Harris’ Top Adviser’s Policy Ideas For Middle East Haven’t Worked, Experts Say

The man advising Vice President Kamala Harris on national security has policy views on Iran and the Middle East that, in practice, have undermined U.S. interests in the region, former U.S. officials and defense experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Philip Gordon currently serves as Harris’ national security and foreign policy adviser as she campaigns ahead of the November elections against former President Donald Trump. While Harris appears to have less expertise in foreign policy and national security, Gordon has decades of experience, especially in Middle Eastern affairs. But his prior stances on dealing with Iran — such as his role in crafting the Iran nuclear deal — have failed to make Tehran any less hostile toward the U.S., and his views and predictions on the broader Middle East region seem to have been incorrect or misguided, experts told the DCNF.

“Mr. Gordon has extensive diplomatic experience. He knows how government works, how decisions are made, and how to navigate bureaucracy. But this does not mean he will provide sound policy advice that will result in strengthened U.S. global leadership,” Morgan Viña, a former Department of Defense official and adviser to Ambassador Nikki Haley, told the DCNF.

“If you look at his policy, his recommendations, his analysis — he’s consistently wrong,” Gabriel Noronha, a former State Department official and current executive director at Polaris National Security, told the DCNF.

Gordon’s team defended his record and policies, with a U.S. official telling the DCNF that he has spent “decades of his career as a national security expert and public servant respected on both sides of the aisle.”

Gordon’s Role In Obama World

Coming from years of prior experience in the public and private sectors, Gordon joined the Obama administration in 2009 and went on to the White House National Security Council (NSC) in 2013, taking on the role of “the most senior White House official focused on the greater Middle East” until 2015, according to the Council on Foreign Relations.

Gordon helped craft the Joint Comprehensive Plan Of Action — known informally as the Iran nuclear deal — in 2015 and was a vocal supporter of the agreement after he left the White House, according to NPR and multiple op-eds penned by Gordon. The nuclear deal was a multi-national agreement spearheaded by the Obama administration to limit Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief.

Former President Donald Trump withdrew from the deal in 2018, arguing that it failed to prevent Iran from advancing its nuclear program while allowing Tehran to become enriched under sanctions relief. After withdrawing from the deal, Trump instituted a “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran and reimposed strict sanctions to prevent the regime from taking in revenues.

In various op-eds, Gordon has publicly denounced Trump’s decision and urged the administration to lift sanctions. Prior to Trump removing the U.S. from the deal, Gordon incorrectly predicted in an op-ed that the move “could lead to war” with Iran.

“[Gordon] has advocated for diminution of U.S. power of the region, advocated for a variety of Iranian interests and fought against measures that would bolster U.S. deterrence,” Noronha told the DCNF.

Working With Harris

After Gordon left the White House in 2015, he joined the Council on Foreign Relations, focusing on U.S. policy toward the Middle East and Europe. He published several op-eds on world affairs and the Trump administration’s foreign and national security policies from 2016 through 2020, appearing in a variety of media outlets, according to his bio provided by the Council on Foreign Relations. Gordon has authored multiple books, including his most recent work, “Losing the Long Game: The False Promise of Regime Change in the Middle East” in 2021.

When President Joe Biden took office in 2021, Gordon began working for Harris and subsequently became her chief national security adviser in 2022. The Biden administration’s policies toward Iran have aimed at getting the country back into a nuclear deal by pursuing diplomatic methods, even allowing the regime to rake in billions of dollars through eased sanctions and unblocking funds that it otherwise did not have access to.

“Since President Biden took office, U.S. deterrence has eroded and failed to prevent Iran from malign regional influence or nuclear weaponization. There is nothing to suggest that Mr. Gordon’s approach to foreign policy will deviate from this current trajectory,” Viña told the DCNF.

Experts and lawmakers recently raised concerns that a number of the op-eds penned by Gordon were written jointly alongside Ariane Tabatabai, a high-level Pentagon official, scholar and member of the Iranian Experts Initiative, an influence network created to bolster Tehran’s public image. Gordon also spoke at a National Iranian American Council (NIAC) conference in 2016, an organization that has been accused of acting as the lobbying arm of the Islamic regime inside the U.S., according to Influence Watch.

Republican Sen. Tom Cotton and Rep Elise Stefanik sent a letter in late July to Harris’ office voicing concern over Gordon’s association with Tabatabai and the NIAC, demanding answers from Harris as to whether she was aware of his connections or if he went through a screening process to obtain a security clearance.

Cotton and Stefanik requested answers from Harris by Aug. 9. An aide to Cotton told the DCNF they had yet to receive a response.

“Kamala Harris needs to answer questions about her national security advisor’s ties to pro-Iran groups,” Cotton told the DCNF.

A U.S. official told the DCNF that the letter was “baseless and absurd,” adding that “[Gordon] has been a staunch advocate of concrete efforts to oppose malign activities by Iran and its terrorist proxies and to support Israel and its security, including by this administration.”

With Gordon as her adviser, Harris has been adamant that an immediate ceasefire is needed in the Israel-Hamas war, largely maintaining the Biden administration’s stance toward the conflict but appearing to be more strict on this issue than Biden. Of the pro-Palestinian protests that have consumed the nation since Oct. 7 — several of which have turned violent — Harris has said that the demonstrators are “showing exactly what human emotion should be,” adding that she rejected some of what they were saying but understood “the emotion behind it.”

Harris has reportedly privately pushed the administration to be more sympathetic on the Palestinian issue, “tougher” with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and “more forceful” about achieving a two-state solution, according to Politico.

“Anyone who values the U.S.-Israel relationship should be concerned what a Harris administration policy, implemented by people like Philip Gordon, would be,” Victoria Coates, senior defense executive at the Heritage Foundation and former White House national security advisor, told the DCNF.

On regions like Afghanistan, Harris has supported Biden’s decision to withdraw U.S. forces from the region in 2021, in what was seen by many as a chaotic and abrupt operation. Harris would sit in on policy briefings ahead of the withdrawal and deliberate with Biden about the issue, according to The Washington Post; she has said she was “the last person in the room” when Biden made the decision in early 2021 to evacuate.

After Gordon became Harris’ national security adviser in 2022, he stated that the administration would “not allow Afghanistan to become a safe haven for terrorists.” Though Al Qaeda’s capabilities have largely been diminished, it has begun returning to Afghanistan and is operating several sites throughout the country at the allowance of the Taliban.

Speaking at the Democratic National Convention (DNC) on Thursday, Harris told a crowd of supporters that she would “always stand up for Israel’s right to defend itself,” adding the ongoing war in Gaza must end given the impact it has had on the region. Harris also said at the convention that she would not “hesitate to take whatever action is necessary to defend our forces and our interests against Iran and Iran-backed terrorists.”

If Harris Wins

It isn’t immediately clear whether Harris would keep Gordon on as her national security adviser if elected president, or appoint him to a cabinet position such as Secretary of State. But his name has been floated as a possibility for a high-level position in recent weeks by multiple media outlets since Harris became the presumptive Democratic nominee.

Some progressive national security professionals are reportedly already rushing to get their names on the list for positions in a possible Harris term, according to Politico.

Should Harris keep Gordon by her side, she would likely rely on him for most of her foreign and national security policy, given that she does not have the same level of experience in those fields, Noronha told the DCNF.

“He would be the one trying to bring decisions before the President, trying to provide the intellectual framework and also the bureaucratic framework,” Noronha told the DCNF. “I would say he’d be the person who is supposed to be the most influential to her thinking and policy.”

Republished with permission from The Daily Caller News Foundation.