Foreign Policy

Matthew Petti | 11.11.2024 10:47 AM

Last week was not a good week to be an old-fashioned neoconservative. At least some Democrats are reportedly blaming Vice President Kamala Harris' election loss on her decision to campaign with former Rep. Liz Cheney (R–Wyo.), war hawk extraordinaire and daughter of the neocon dark lord, former Vice President Dick Cheney. President-elect Donald Trump has ruled out bringing back two of his most hawkish advisers, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley. The turbo-hawk Sen. Tom Cotton (R–Ark.) has reportedly said that he won't be working in the administration.

And on Sunday morning, one of Trump's sons—Donald Trump Jr.—publicly endorsed a call for "maximum pressure to keep all neocons and war hawks out of the Trump administration." No wonder David Frum, author of former President George W. Bush's "Axis of Evil" speech, is now complaining that the second Trump administration might drop its "veneer of loyalty to the United States."

Yet the Trump administration may still end up pursuing the same Middle Eastern policies that the neoconservatives wanted. Two former officials obsessed with regime change campaigns in the region appear to be involved in the transition to a second Trump administration. Brian Hook is running the transition at the State Department. Joel Rayburn is "expected to play" a role at the National Security Council, according to Politico. Rep. Elisa Stefanik (R–N.Y.), who promised a new "MAXIMUM PRESSURE campaign against Iran," has reportedly been offered the job of U.N. ambassador. And many contenders for Trump's new cabinet are some lesser-known—but no less aggressive—hawks.

While Trump's policies on China (a renewed trade war) and Ukraine (less military aid) seem easy to predict, his approach to the Middle East is up in the air. Staffing is going to be particularly important in how the second Trump administration handles the region's conflicts.

A former attorney, Hook worked during the first Trump transition as director of policy planning at the State Department, where he helped push out Michael Ratney, then the U.S. special envoy for Syria, because he believed that Ratney thinks "Syria is lost," according to a 2019 report by the State Department's inspector general office. (The inspector general investigated Ratney's demotion for ethnic bias after finding Hook's written notes on Ratney: "Opposed strikes. Palestinian Arab. Not friendly to Israel.")

Ratney, the envoy to Syria, was replaced with Joel Rayburn, a man The Wall Street Journal has described as part of a group of retired military........

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