Kamala Harris’s Philip Gordon: Inconspicuous and influential

As the initial excitement over Kamala Harris’s emergence as the presumptive Democratic nominee wanes, increased scrutiny is being directed toward her past positions, policies, and advisors.

On July 31, Senator Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas) and Congresswoman Elise Stefanik (R-New York) sent a letter to Vice-President Harris, inquiring about her national security advisor, Philip H. Gordon, and his possible ties to Iran’s influence network in the US, known as the Iran Expert Initiative. This network was exposed in a joint investigation by Iran International and Semafor last September.

The letter from Cotton and Stefanik followed a similar letter by Senator Jim Risch (R-Idaho) and Congressman Michael McCaul (R-Texas) on July 30 to Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, expressing concerns about Iran's influence operations in the US and threatening to subpoena the State Department if it failed to respond to their May 6 requestregarding Robert Malley’s alleged sharing of classified documents.

These efforts to verify the relationship between Iran’s Expert Network and a senior advisors like Philip Gordon are part of a broader investigation that began in October 2023 and cannot be dismissed as mere partisan rabble-rousing.

Until the Cotton-Stefanik public letter, Gordon's career and influence were mostly unfamiliar to those outside Washington, DC. On August 2, 2024, Politico article offered some background on Gordon for European readers, yet it failed to offer a thorough account of his career and national security vision.

Gordon’s influence on Harris’s policy is evident in her televised remarks after meeting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on July 25, where she condemned the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and urged Israel to accept the US-backed ceasefire plan. This aligns with Gordon’s long-standing advocacy for de-escalation and multilateral engagement in the Middle East. However, skepticism persists around Gordon’s recent post on "X," where he reassured the public of Harris’s unwavering support for Israel against Iran and its proxies, reflecting doubts rooted in his extensive diplomatic history.

Given Harris's limited foreign policy experience before becoming vice president, intense scrutiny of Gordon's background is essential for both the press and politicians. Analysts viewed Harris as a “neophyte” in foreign policy as she prepared for the vice presidency. Over the past four years, Gordon likely offered the vice president strategic counsel and education on US diplomacy's nuances. Assessing how Gordon’s perspectives might have shaped Harris’s approach and how they might influence her policies if she becomes president—and potentially appoints him as her national security advisor, a role not requiring Senate confirmation—is vital.

Understanding Gordon’s extensive intellectual and diplomatic career requires piecing together his various roles, interviews, articles, op-eds, and books, as no comprehensive biography of his exists. This thorough examination is essential to grasp his current national security stance, which notably aligns with pro-Iran “engagement” and “incentives” advocates.

Philip H. Gordon: From a Europeanist to an expert on Middle East

Philip H. Gordon is a distinguished diplomat and scholar, a European languages polyglot, with a PhD from Johns Hopkins University (1991) on Gaullist Legacy and France’s Security Diplomacy (1993). Known for his mild-mannered demeanor, Gordon has held key diplomatic roles under Presidents Clinton, Obama, and Biden. Unlike many diplomats who maintain a nonpartisan approach, Gordon is noted for his strong partisan alignment in foreign policy. This contrasts with figures like Victoria Nuland and Brett McGurk, who have served across party lines while maintaining a more neutral stance in their careers. For instance, McGurk, now serving as the White House’s Middle East Coordinator—a position Gordon once held under Obama—has worked under both Republican and Democratic presidents. He resigned in protest during the Trump administration, showcasing his commitment to his principles despite political pressures and accusations of "careerism."

Gordon acquired much of his expertise on the Middle East during his sabbaticals from the Bush and Trump administrations. In a 2004 interview promoting his book “Allies at War,” he argued against military confrontation with Iran and advocated for a mix of sanctions and incentives to encourage Iran's cooperation on its nuclear program. He also contributed to the “2005 US Compact with Europe,” which proposed a US commitment to allow EU investment in Iran in exchange for halting its nuclear fuel cycle. Mentioning Iran 24 times, the document can be seen as a precursor to shaping Obama's policy toward Iran. In his 2007 book “Winning the Right War,” Gordon proposed a “New Deal for the Middle East,” advocating withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan, an Arab-Israeli détente (distinct from Trump’s Abraham Accords), and engaging Iran through sanctions and incentives.

After Obama's election, Gordon served as Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs from 2009 to 2013. The May 2010 National Security Strategy closely mirrors many ideas from Winning the Right War, particularly on engaging Iran, though it is not easy to fully assess his influence on the document.

During the Arab Spring and the Iran nuclear negotiations, Gordon was appointed Special Assistant to the President and White House Coordinator for the Middle East, North Africa, and the Gulf Region. While the specifics of his role in the 2013-2015 negotiations remain unclear, his expertise in European diplomacy, Middle Eastern affairs, and intelligence was probably helpful. Gordon excelled at processing piles of detailed daily briefings from the CIA, Pentagon, and State Department and was an effective liaison between the White House and negotiators in Oman and Vienna, leveraging long-standing relationships with key figures like Anthony Blinken and Rob Malley; his colleagues and soccer buddies from the late 1990s. His policy recommendations on Iran, outlined in Winning the Right War, influenced the November 25, 2013, “Joint Plan of Action,” which later became the framework for the 2015 Iran nuclear deal(JCPOA).

During his busy sabbatical from government service, Gordon researched and authored "Losing the Long Game: The False Promise of Regime Change in the Middle East" (Macmillan, 2022), a work that mirrors the arguments and tone of his earlier book, "Winning the Right War." Revising US foreign policy from 1945 onwards, with specific emphasis on the confrontational approaches adopted by both the Bush and Trump administrations, "Losing the Long Game" underscores Gordon's concerns about "escalation," "American credibility," and the necessity of "engaging" with various Middle Eastern actors, regardless of their rogue status from the US perspective. The book in effect consolidates the vision previously articulated in "Winning the Right War," advocating for a more innovative foreign policy that emphasizes diplomatic engagement and de-escalation.

The similarities between the vision outlined in Gordon's "Losing the Long Game" and Biden’s 2022 National Security Strategy are striking. Both emphasize de-escalation and diplomatic engagement, contrasting sharply with Trump's confrontational approach to the Middle East. Gordon's vision, as detailed in "Losing the Long Game," aligns closely with the principles in Biden's strategy, highlighting the need to avoid unnecessary escalation and maintain American credibility through engagement.

When Biden assumed office in 2021, several Iranian Revolutionary Guards-affiliated national security strategists publicly discussed how Iran could exploit the Biden administration’s de-escalation approach, characterized by reluctance to confront Iran directly, to the advantage of the Islamic Republic.

Gordon's vision, as articulated in his writings and public statements, emphasizes diplomatic engagement and multilateralism. Gordon has been part of an exclusive group of advisors to "democratic" presidents. Judging by his writings before and after assuming high office, one can infer that he advocated for restraint and multilateral diplomacy over unilateral military intervention, particularly in the cases of Syria and Ukraine. However, this approach may overlook the possibility that hardline strategists within Iran's regime could interpret such diplomacy as a sign of weakness. Many observers argue that the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, guided by a similar vision, was perceived by adversaries like Russia’s Putin and Iran’s Khamenei as a sign of American weakness. Historians, perhaps thirty years from now, may be able to establish from the archives the pivotal role Gordon played in shaping Obama’s response to key events such as Putin’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, or Obama’s strategy in addressing the rise of ISIS and Russia’s intervention in Syria, or Biden’s policy towards the Taliban and the regime in Tehran.

As Kamala Harris is now in a tight race with Donald Trump, the prospect of Philip H. Gordon becoming her administration’s national security advisor warrants scrutiny. The scrutiny over Gordon's connections and influence is amplified by the current political climate, with Kamala Harris's presidency a distinct possibility and the broader implications of U.S. foreign policy decisions in a volatile global landscape. Republican lawmakers' inquiries and demands for transparency reflect a broader concern about ensuring that U.S. national security policies are not unduly influenced by foreign entities, particularly those linked to adversarial regimes like the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Philip H. Gordon’s Work History

• Bachelor of Arts in French and philosophy from Ohio University, 1984
• PhD, 1991, European Studies and international Economics from Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies
• Senior Fellow, The International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), London, UK, 1990-1993
• Senior Fellow, The Brookings Institution 1994-1998
• Director for European Affairs on President Clinton’s National Security Council at the White House, 1998-2001
• Senior Fellow, The Center on the United States and Europe, the Brookings Institution, 2001-2009
• Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, May 2009-March 2013
• Special Assistant to the President and White House Coordinator for the Middle East, North Africa, and the Gulf Region on President Obama's National Security Council from March 11, 2013, to April 17, 2015
• Mary and David Boies Senior Fellow in U.S. Foreign Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) starting on March 31, 2015, until January 2021
• Assistant to the President and National Security Advisor to the Vice President: Since March 21, 2022-Present