US officials say McGurk pushing controversial post-war plan for Gaza
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According to HuffPost, Brett McGurk is pushing a proposal to reconstruct Palestinian territory based on an agreement between "Israel" and Saudi Arabia.
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US National Security Council Coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa Brett McGurk speaks during the IISS Manama Dialogue security conference in Manama on November 18, 2023. (AP)
HuffPost has discovered that White House official Brett McGurk is privately circulating a controversial proposal to rebuild Gaza once the Israeli aggression stops, despite major fears from certain officials within the administration that it will plant the seeds for future regional unrest.
McGurk made a recent visit to Qatar's Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, but the visit remained under the radar, as the US made no announcement of the visit and published no readout regarding the meeting between the two.
McGurk spoke to the Qatari PM, knowing that Qatar constitutes a key ally for Washington in the region and has been playing, alongside Egypt, a significant role as a mediator in the war on the Gaza Strip.
According to sources cited by Axios, the two discussed regional tensions and "efforts to secure the release" of Israeli captives being held by the Palestinian Resistance in the Strip.
McGurk has been selling national security officials on a strategy that proposes a 90-day schedule for what should happen when the war on Gaza halts, according to three US sources. It contends that stability may be attained if American, Israeli, Palestinian, and Saudi authorities begin an urgent diplomatic campaign that emphasizes the normalization of Israeli-Saudi relations, the officials added.
Saudi still interested in normalization
In an interview for BBC News on Tuesday, the Ambassador of Saudi Arabia to the UK expressed interest in establishing normalized relations with "Israel" once the war comes to a complete halt in Gaza. However, he noted that any agreement must pave the way for the establishment of a Palestinian state.
Prince Khalid bin Bandar told BBC that a normalization agreement was on the verge of completion when the Kingdom suspended US-brokered talks after the Palestinian Resistance launched Operation Al-Aqsa Flood.
He stated that Saudi Arabia still maintains the belief in normalizing ties with "Israel", despite the "deplorable" casualty figures in Gaza. But such ties would not be pursued at the expense of the well-being of the Palestinian people, he noted.
There is widespread suspicion that past US-led normalization agreements with Arab countries, which disregarded Palestinian concerns, caused more resentment and chaos.
Biden's emphasis on Saudi normalization has alarmed Palestinians and authorities in the region, and McGurk's hastened timeframe has only raised additional concerns.
Insiders told HuffPost that McGurk's strategy would leverage the incentive of reconstruction money from Saudi Arabia and maybe other affluent Gulf nations, such as Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, to exert pressure on both the Palestinians and "Israel". In this vision, Palestinian leaders would agree to form a new administration in Gaza and the occupied West Bank and tone down their criticism of "Israel", while "Israel" would accept limited involvement in Gaza.
Foreign policy experts in the United States and other nations agree that Saudi Arabia would find it difficult to publicly support "Israel" without claiming that they are helping Palestinians since Palestinians have few alternatives and little clout over their foreign sponsors.
Palestinians; an afterthought of US interests
However, in the years leading up to October 7, experts warned that the key to any solution was substantial progress for Palestinians toward statehood not just pledges of greater economic help or modest Israeli concessions.
McGurk's ideas mirror the Biden administration's pre-Oct. 7 policy of treating Palestinians as an afterthought, according to all three sources, who sought anonymity to reveal sensitive internal deliberations.
One US official said it "misses the point," with another saying the administration "thinks they can utilize the reconstruction portion of this to ease the pain of normalizing with Saudi."
“These plans are delusionally optimistic and have numerous spoilers and parties that will be unlikely to cooperate or do what the U.S. plans,” another official told HuffPost, referring to the YAF.
Aside from the McGurk proposal unlikely gaining the support of Palestinians, significant difficulties on Capitol Hill will arise.
Lawmakers have repeatedly stated that their desire to assist the Israeli occupation to normalize with Arab states is concerning, due to what they would have to commit, which would most likely include a binding American defense treaty with Saudi Arabia and US assistance with a Saudi nuclear program, among other enticements. Congress would have to ratify the pact and might review or prohibit future US-Saudi partnerships.
20 senators wrote to Biden in October about the Saudi Arabian regime being “an authoritarian regime which regularly undermines U.S. interests in the region, has a deeply concerning human rights record, and has pursued an aggressive and reckless foreign policy agenda."
Who is McGurk?
Significantly, McGurk has been historically active in the Middle East, more specifically on files about the invasion and occupation of Iraq and US strategies to counter Iran.
Between 2005 and 2009, McGurk, under the Bush administration, was assigned as Director for Iraq and then as Special Assistant to the US President and Senior Director for Iraq and Afghanistan.
In 2007, McGurk, according to the US government website, was "one of the chief architects with President Bush of the strategy known as 'the Surge'." This strategy saw a surge of US troops in Iraq, over 20,000 troops, claiming to serve to "secure" and "stabilize" Iraq's Baghdad and al-Anbar Governorate.
In 2008, McGurk served as the lead negotiator and coordinator regarding bilateral talks between the US and the Iraqi government on both a long-term Strategic Framework Agreement and a Security Agreement to govern what was set to be a "temporary presence of US forces" and the "normalization of bilateral relations between Iraq and the United States."
During former US President Barack Obama's administration, McGurk was assigned as Senior Advisor in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs "with a focus on Iraq and other regional initiatives." Moreover, he served as a special advisor to the National Security Staff and as Senior Advisor to a number of US ambassadors in Iraq.
In 2015, McGurk was appointed as Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL.
These positions and time periods coincide with the rise of the Axis of Resistance and its expansion, as ISIS and US-backed proxies were being defeated in the region. Thus, many questions have been raised on why the US kept the meeting between an "architect" of US politics in the Middle East and a key US ally in the region a secret amid rising tensions and claims of seeking to tone these same escalations down.
