As questions emerge about how President-elect Donald Trump will handle the ongoing turmoil in the Middle East during a second term, some pro-Israel foreign policy voices say they have been reassured by recent news reports that Brian Hook, a special envoy for Iran in the first Trump administration, is expected to lead the transition team at the State Department.

Hook, who previously worked in the State Department under former President George W. Bush and is now the vice chairman of Cerberus Global Investments, helped to oversee Trump’s so-called “maximum pressure” campaign toward Iran, including punishing sanctions after the U.S. withdrawal from the Iranian nuclear deal. He was also a key player on the team that negotiated the Abraham Accords, Trump’s signature foreign policy achievement, which the president-elect has pledged to expand when he returns to office.

In interviews with Jewish Insider, several national security experts described Hook, 56, as a seasoned diplomat and staunch supporter of Israel who could help lay the initial groundwork and instill discipline to carry out Trump’s occasionally vague Middle East policy proposals, as he used mixed rhetoric in recent months.

“I couldn’t think of a better person to lead the transition team given Brian’s experience in senior roles at the State Department,” Mark Dubowitz, the CEO of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told JI on Thursday. “His role there suggests that we will be seeing highly qualified and competent people staffing the department who will implement the president’s policies of peace through strength.”

Danielle Pletka, a foreign policy analyst at the American Enterprise Institute who has been critical of Trump, called Hook a “great choice” to helm the State Department transition. “No one knows better than he the menace Iran represents to us and our allies. The government security he has every day is a terrifying reminder of that,” she told JI, alluding to his inclusion on an Iranian hit list targeting several former Trump national security officials.

“Brian has great relationships in the region and knows Washington well,” Pletka added. “He’s a pro, and should be a reassuring sign to all of our allies.”

Andrew Ghalili, a senior policy analyst at National Union for Democracy in Iran, said Hook “oversaw the most successful Iran policies emanating from Washington in decades,” even if the former envoy stepped down from his position before the Trump administration achieved its goal of pressuring Iran to renegotiate a nuclear agreement that President Joe Biden sought to resurrect during his time in office.  

“Hook not only oversaw a suite of sanctions and strategic pressures that crippled the regime,” Ghalili told JI, “but also demonstrated a sensitivity toward the Iranian people and the diaspora, understanding their aspirations for freedom and democracy.”

Even as the geopolitical situation has changed since Trump was in office — with a widening regional war that has included attacks between Israel and Iran — it still “presents opportunities to further enhance the maximum pressure strategy,” Jason Brodsky, the policy director of United Against Nuclear Iran, told JI. 

“Europe,” he added, “may be more willing to take steps to pressure Iran than during the first Trump administration.”

Other experts, however, were skeptical that Hook’s possible involvement with the transition indicated any clear policy vision. “It’s Trump, so no idea,” Walter Russell Mead, a foreign policy analyst at the Hudson Institute, said in a succinct email to JI. The former president, he added, “will be The Decider.”

Throughout the campaign, Trump frequently touted his administration’s record on Middle East issues — including a hard-line approach to Iran. But he also failed to outline substantive proposals for a second term, even as he claimed that increasing violence in the region “would never have happened” if he had been in office. The president-elect has vowed to quickly end the wars in the Middle East when he returns to the White House, but he has not offered any plans for how to reach a cease-fire.

Hook, who is also reportedly in the running for a senior position in the State Department, could not be reached for comment on Thursday. 

The Trump team did not address Hook’s status on the transition process in a statement shared with JI. “The American people re-elected President Trump by a resounding margin giving him a mandate to implement the promises he made on the campaign trail,” said Karoline Leavitt, a spokesperson for the transition. “He will deliver.”

One person familiar with the transition process at State, speaking on the condition of anonymity to address private deliberations, said it was premature to assume Hook had been tapped for the position. “Until the secretary of state is nominated, no one else matters on the transition,” the person told JI via text on Thursday. “The sec state will make the decision.”

Among the candidates rumored to be under consideration for secretary of state are Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-TN), a former ambassador to Japan; Robert O’Brien, Trump’s former national security advisor; and Ric Grenell, who served as the former president’s ambassador to Germany as well as his acting director of national intelligence.

Grenell, who is one of Trump’s closest foreign policy advisors and helped lead outreach to Arab American voters during the election, has displayed a penchant for isolationism championed by the MAGA wing of the Republican Party, especially with regard to U.S. support for Ukraine.

But conservative foreign policy experts surveyed by JI said they did not envision ideological tensions between Hook and Grenell emerging should they serve together. “Grenell mirrors Trump in being a champion-level supporter of Israel and Iran hawk,” said a former official on Trump’s National Security Council, who was granted anonymity to discuss the transition. “There would be no reason for friction.”

Even as he has declined to confirm if he is helping with the transition, telling CNN on Thursday that he had no comment, Hook has otherwise been ready to openly discuss, in broad strokes at least, how Trump would approach some of the most intractable issues roiling the Middle East.

Speaking with CNN, the former envoy suggested that Trump would, in a second term, return to his maximum pressure policy in order to “isolate Iran diplomatically and weaken them economically so that they can’t fund all of the violence,” referring to the Islamic Republic’s proxies in Lebanon and Gaza, among other places.

“Trump has no interest in regime change,” Hook clarified. “The future of Iran will be decided by the Iranian people.”

He also said that an Israeli-Palestinian peace plan Trump proposed in his first term “is still relevant today,” even as he acknowledged that the ongoing war in Gaza sparked by Hamas’ Oct. 7 terror attacks “has really not put anybody in much of a mood to be talking about” a path to a two-state solution.