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Barrack “has been instrumental in advancing President Trump’s bold, historic Middle East agenda,” White House spokesperson Olivia Wales said in an emailed comment. “The President appreciates the Special Presidential Envoy’s efforts to give post-Assad Syria a chance at peace and prosperity, and engage Iraq to become terrorism- and Iranian-backed militia-free.”
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One former US official said that when Barrack is in Washington, it’s not a question whether he will get time with the president, which isn’t the case for most diplomats. He regularly calls and messages Trump directly. Barrack has at times leaned into that access, floating the idea of arranging calls directly from the Oval Office to underscore his influence in conversations with foreign counterparts, the person said.
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Syria Pivot
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Iraq was only formally added to Barrack’s job title at the end of May, though officials said he’d already been engaged there. The country chose a new prime minister in April and pressure from Trump helped block a candidate seen as close to Iran, which has gained influence within its neighbor since the American invasion in 2003 to topple Saddam Hussein. US priorities include disarming Tehran-backed militias that have been active in Iraq, as they have in Syria and Lebanon, and staunching the flow of weapons across that corridor.
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The clearest example of Barrack’s influence has been in Syria. Current and former officials said he played a central role in persuading Trump to embrace the government of President Ahmed al-Sharaa, a former jihadist commander who as recently as 2024 had a $10 million US bounty on his head.
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The US has begun easing the sanctions that isolated Syria under Assad, who was toppled by al-Sharaa in 2024. It’s aligned with Turkey in efforts to reunify a country fragmented by a decade of civil war. Trump even suggested recently that al-Sharaa’s forces could do a “better job” than Israel of fighting Hezbollah in Lebanon, though a Syrian intervention hasn’t been publicly endorsed by his national security team, and al-Sharaa himself rejected the idea.
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Barrack’s vision is rooted in the idea of restoring economic connectivity across the war-torn region via long-dormant transportation and energy links, according to Representative Joe Wilson, a South Carolina Republican and member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee who traveled to Syria and Lebanon with the ambassador last year.
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One example Wilson cited is the proposed revival of the historic Hejaz Railway, which would connect Syria, Turkey, Jordan and Saudi Arabia – and bypass the Strait of Hormuz. Another is the currently inoperative Kirkuk-Baniyas pipeline, which could carry Iraqi crude to Syria’s Mediterranean coast.
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Systems such as these have “deteriorated and fallen into disrepair and non-use,” but they can be restored, Wilson said. “We must have the infrastructure in place so that there actually can be peace and prosperity.”
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To be sure, the Middle East has a long history of ambitious projects that never materialized. There are lots of questions around the ones Barrack is backing, including who’ll pay for them and how they can get built across countries still exposed to fallout from old conflicts and risks from new ones like the US-Israeli war on Iran.
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“For most companies looking to invest, especially US companies, it’s not stable enough yet,” said Margolin at the Washington Institute.
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‘Benevolent Monarchies’
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In Israel, there are mutterings that Barrack is too pro-Turkish. That reflects a wider concern about Ankara’s ambitions for regional leadership, and a specific clash over Syria. Turkey is the chief backer of al-Sharaa’s government while Israel has established military control over Syrian territory near its border and clashed with fighters there late last month.
English (US)