On March 21, Brett McGurk gave a keynote address at the Clough Center’s 2025 Spring Symposium. McGurk served as deputy assistant to the President and National Security Council Coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa. Before that, he served as an assistant to the George W. Bush Administration in Iraq and then to the Barack Obama Administration. During his service in Iraq, McGurk played a key role in preparing a legal framework to hold elections after the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003, which aimed to lay the groundwork for a new constitution.
Speaking to a packed audience, McGurk tied his speech on the transition to democracy to his legal and diplomatic experience in Iraq. He suggested that an approach to transition to democracy needs to include security concerns and economic partnerships. Instead of a maximalist approach to the promotion of democracy, the regional conditions should be considered, e.g., major state and non-state actors that could hinder the process. For example, the US intended to help establish a constitution in Iraq, and Iraq has made considerable progress in the two decades since the war began. However, this progress toward democracy came at a high price, like the rise of ISIS, which was the rebranded version of Al-Qaeda. This also hurt US troops who were based in Iraq. The reality, McGurk suggested, was that Iraqis cared little about democracy in the absence of security. In other words, democracy takes root where–and only where–there is security. McGurk’s pragmatism contrasts with the maximalist approach.
McGurk also pointed to the significance of economic partnerships in the Middle East that can strengthen US policy in the region. For instance, the UAE has recently made massive AI investments in partnership with the US. McGurk also touched on the security concerns regarding China and Russia, and he discussed the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians of Gaza.
You can watch the full video via the link below.
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