CounterPunch Exclusives

CounterPunch Exclusives

Jared Kushner and the Privatization of America’s Iran Strategy

Image by sina drakhshani.

The hardest question in American Middle East policy is no longer only what Washington wants from the region. It is who gets to shape that policy. That question has become impossible to ignore. During Donald Trump’s first term, Kushner played a central role in White House diplomacy, especially the normalization push that produced the Abraham Accords. Today, Trump has restored a hardline Iran posture, including a “maximum pressure” campaign, while Kushner has deep ties to Gulf capital and remains close to Middle East diplomacy. That overlap does not prove corruption. It does, however, make America’s Iran strategy harder to describe as a purely public policy project.

Kushner’s first-term role was not marginal. He was one of the most visible architects of an approach that tied Arab-Israeli normalization, Gulf relations, and pressure on Iran into one regional vision. The Iran policy around it relied on economic coercion and regional isolation. Washington was trying to build a regional order in which Israel and key Arab states aligned more openly, while Iran was pushed further out.

That is why what happened after Kushner left government matters. In 2022, House investigators opened a probe into the Saudi Public Investment Fund’s $2 billion investment in his private equity firm, Affinity........

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