In detailing how he said he believes the United States should deal with turmoil in the Middle East, Philip Gordon refuted strategies that have been put forth by Republican presidential candidates Ted Cruz and Donald Trump.

Gordon, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations who served as the White House coordinator for the Middle East, North Africa and the Gulf Region from 2013-15, said on Monday that the smartest approach the U.S. can deploy toward the Middle East is one more sophisticated than what might be “suitable for debate mode.”

“It’s easier and simpler to call for carpet bombing … or kicking the bleep out of someone,” he said, referring to the plans proposed by business mogul Trump and Sen. Cruz (R-Texas) without naming the candidates. “… But there’s not a quick or easy fix to these questions.”

In a lecture in the Strasser Legacy Room in Syracuse University’s Eggers Hall on Monday, Gordon laid out the U.S.’s interests in the Middle East and the driving forces behind the region’s turmoil. He also provided his perspective on what role the U.S. should play in the region.

Shortly after being introduced to an audience of about 50 people by James Steinberg, the dean of the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Gordon said the U.S. should be concerned with the Middle East because the U.S. has “very fundamental, core interests at stake.”

Those interests, Gordon said, include terrorism, nuclear issues and energy.

Gordon said terrorism is being driven by dynamics in the Middle East, adding that terrorism affects the U.S.’s “friends and partners” in the region, as well as Western countries such as France and the U.S. itself. He called attention to the November terrorist attacks in Paris and the December terrorist attack in San Bernardino, California.

In regard to nuclear issues, Gordon said it’s within the U.S.’s interest to prevent nuclear proliferation with policies such as the Iran nuclear framework deal, which puts restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program.

Gordon added that even though the U.S. isn’t directly importing oil from the Middle East, much of the world still does, which he said can directly impact the U.S.

“So it would be wrong to conclude that the United States can just turn away and whatever happens in the Middle East, stays in the Middle East,” Gordon said.

Gordon then went on to outline “three core trends” that explain the instability in the Middle East. Those three trends, Gordon said, include an erosion of state institutions and leaders — such as Ali Abdullah Saleh in Yemen and Saddam Hussein in Iraq — growing sectarianism in the region and divisions in the Sunni world.

Gordon said, for the most part, those issues aren’t U.S. creations or things the country can control.

“There’s a tendency to assume that the United States controls everything and can prevent or bring about anything that it wants,” he said. “I think my experience … is that, that’s not always the case.”

He added that successfully intervening in the Middle East is “really hard” to do.

“That said, the United States is still an essential actor … and we have core interests,” he said, before mentioning three things he said he believes the country should aim to do: deal with the Syrian civil war, contain Iran and defeat the Islamic State (IS).

In Syria, Gordon said the U.S. should consolidate the ceasefire that is currently underway and build on it in a way that would save lives in Syria and be in the U.S.’s own interests.

Additionally, Gordon said the U.S. needs to both monitor Iran’s potential development of nuclear weapons and ensure in the long run that the nuclear deal can be a basis for change in Iran.

In dealing with IS, Gordon said the U.S.’s approach needs elements of “hard power” — such as the airstrikes the U.S. has launched — as well as reforming the politics that have led to the development of IS by reducing the number of people it can recruit.

Those can be complicated tactics, Gordon said, before contrasting those tactics with the suggestions that have been made by Cruz and Trump, saying that those proposals are “bumper sticker material.”

But Gordon said he expects that the extreme ideas being brought up now in the contentious primary season won’t ultimately be a part of the next administration’s foreign policy.

“Whoever is president of the United States is going to have to sit down and really think through very carefully the interests of the U.S. and the challenges that I have described and hopefully pursue a more sensible policy,” he said.

Published on March 21, 2016 at 11:12 pm

Contact Michael: mdburk01@syr.edu