Rich Goldberg, a senior advisor at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, this week concluded a monthslong stint in the Trump administration as the senior counselor for the White House’s new National Energy Dominance Council (NEDC) and a senior advisor to Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum.

Goldberg helped launch the NEDC, which he compared in an interview with Jewish Insider this week to a “[National Security Council], only for energy,” coordinating with the White House, Burgum and Secretary of Energy Christopher Wright to build domestic production of energy and exploitation of oil, gas, coal and nuclear resources, as well as critical minerals. That effort includes moves to speed up approvals for energy projects.

He said that the council is particularly focused on the energy demands of the growing AI space, which are “so enormous that we truly have a national emergency on our hands.” He said the U.S. will “lose the [AI] arms race to China” if it can’t increase its capacity to generate power, in partnership with U.S. allies.

He added that the NEDC is also focused on exporting American energy to allies, with the goal of de-linking them from U.S. adversaries and using U.S. energy to promote stability amid potential global energy crises.

As part of the NEDC’s efforts, the U.S. and Israel signed a memorandum of understanding on U.S.-Israel energy and artificial intelligence cooperation during Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s July visit to the U.S.

“This has huge potential for the future, when you think about combining the Israeli tech and innovation ecosystem and having the smartest people in Israel and startups focused on power generation, focused on advanced energy solutions, focused on AI applications for energy, and combining that with U.S. infrastructure, U.S. know-how, U.S. leadership,” Goldberg said. 

He said that the program could be expanded to include the United Arab Emirates, which is stepping up its investments in the U.S. and in AI.

Goldberg argued that the administration’s “energy dominance” approach can help offset the impacts of global instability, pointing to the Israel-Iran war as an example. He said that the U.S.’ lack of dependence on Middle Eastern oil gave it “flexibility” in taking action against Iran, including imposing primary and secondary sanctions on Iranian oil, and carrying out strikes.

He said that expanding U.S. energy production will also allow it to respond quickly and assist allies and partners if their supplies might be interrupted. Goldberg noted that the administration had reached out to Egypt and Jordan when the war began to ensure their energy supplies wouldn’t be impacted.

“I think we have a lot of flexibility right now, if we wanted to, to curtail Iranian energy flows dramatically,” Goldberg said. “But obviously what [President Donald Trump] directed and accomplished at the end of the 12-day war, combined with what the Israelis accomplished, has given him far more tremendous options and flexibility than any sanctions ever could.”

Goldberg argued that the setbacks to Iran’s nuclear program from the U.S. and Israeli strikes have also “dramatically improved the energy shipment picture and our national security picture” in the Middle East, making it more risky for Iran to threaten maritime shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, which he also called a blow to China.

Goldberg also highlighted the fact that the administration recently stopped providing waivers that allowed Iraq to continue purchasing energy from Iran. He said that increased U.S. production allows the U.S. to work with Iraq to de-link its energy supply from Iran.

“The energy sector, the financial sector has been the financial pathway for Iran, along with its terror militias … to maintain effective control and influence over Baghdad,” Goldberg said. “This is not in the U.S. interest, it’s not in Iraq’s interest.”

He said Iraq is “Iran’s Alamo” — one of its last strongholds outside its borders, aside from the Houthis in Yemen — “and we would be committing policy malpractice not to seize the moment.” He added that Iraq also has “tremendous natural resources” that could be developed if the influence and threat of Iranian-backed militias could be eliminated.

As for the Houthis, Goldberg said that there will need to be “creative ways” to address that threat, involving Gulf partners and Israel.

He said that the Middle East also provides great opportunities for growth in the energy sector, ultimately through the India-Middle East-Europe Corridor (IMEC) — a proposed pipeline, rail and shipping corridor that would run from Mumbai through the Gulf states and Israel to Greece. Saudi-Israeli normalization would be critical to advancing the IMEC vision.

The IMEC proposal would also sidestep the Houthi threat in the Red Sea, Goldberg noted. 

“This is where IMEC presents a real game-changing opportunity through energy infrastructure,” he said. “It’s absolutely conceivable and something we should be putting all of our energy behind, politically, to have a Saudi-to-Europe pipeline connection that runs straight through Eilat. The infrastructure is largely mapped out. It would take a relatively modest infrastructure investment upgrade.”

He said that the vision goes beyond simple normalization: “What we’re looking at is complete economic and energy integration and a transformation of global supply chains.” He said that makes him “optimistic” about the future for the region.

Asked about his inside perspective on the Trump administration’s decision-making around the Israel-Iran war and the U.S.’ decision to bomb Iran, Goldberg praised Trump, saying that “you could not have scripted how everything played out better” and lauded Trump for his “willingness to defy, truly, a crowd of idiots out in the Twitter-sphere that were screaming of all kinds of crazy things that might happen if the U.S. did the obvious and removed the Iranian ability to cross the nuclear threshold in any short amount of time.”

Goldberg said that the U.S. strikes were a response to a “core national security interest” and a “clear and present national security threat” that “bogged us down in the world,” “distracted us from longer-term strategic threats” and “increased price premiums” for energy and shipping supply chains.

He also argued that the Israeli military campaign against Iran could not have seen the success that it did unless Trump had been elected president, arguing that the weapons shipments that the Biden administration withheld from Israel were critical to the Israeli operations, as was Trump’s willingness to deploy U.S. military assets to defend Israel. He dismissed the notion that the Trump administration had prematurely forced Israel to cut off its military operation against Iran.

Goldberg said that reimposing United Nations sanctions on Iran through the snapback mechanism would be a critical step toward “enshrining the policy of no reconstitution at the Security Council,” and prevent a future president — he named left-wing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) or right-wing podcast host Tucker Carlson — from attempting to revive the Obama-era nuclear deal and granting sanctions relief once again.

“The president, from everything that I have seen, is fundamentally committed to ensuring Iran does not reconstitute its nuclear program, dismantles it further if he can achieve that diplomatically, and is not allowed to continue to foment wars, sponsor terrorism,” Goldberg said. “The Iranians now have to fear Donald Trump using force at any given moment,” he added.

Goldberg said that media reports of breaches between Trump and the Israeli government were “false” and “politically motivated in some sort of disinformation campaign.”

“The one truth I know is that the Trump administration — the president, the prime minister — are closely, closely coordinated,” Goldberg said.

Regarding the future of Gaza, Goldberg emphasized that Hamas has not negotiated in good faith to release the hostages, and said that “at some point, we should have a question of what value the Hamas leaders outside of Gaza present to us” if they are not being helpful — or are actively harmful — in achieving hostage-release deals.

He added that Trump’s proposal for the mass relocation of the population of Gaza for rebuilding and anti-Hamas operations is still on the table if other efforts fail. Goldberg suggested that the existing Israeli strategy of clearing areas but then withdrawing, rather than setting up new governance, had not been successful, but that a new Israeli occupation strategy could provide space for such an approach. He said there are other options that could be “in between those two.”

“[The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation] is fundamentally the greatest assault on the Hamas-international aid humanitarian apparatus that could possibly exist, which is why they need it to die,” Goldberg continued. “If they lose the fight against GHF, if GHF evolves further into something that actually goes into communities … and the IDF facilitates that in some way, and it proves to be successful and [non-Hamas] people are willing to step up” to take on leadership and civil service roles, “you have a hope for Gaza.”

He said that abandoning the GHF or an equivalent effort would be a major victory for Hamas.

Sebastian Gorka, the White House senior director for counterterrorism and a deputy assistant to the president, said Wednesday at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies that the U.S. is not seeking regime change in Iran, but will maintain its maximum-pressure campaign on Tehran.

Gorka also said that he supports efforts to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization, suggested that he’s pursuing efforts to convince Qatar and Turkey to cut ties with Hamas and said the U.S. wants to see Syrian minority groups come to the table and join with the new Syrian government.

He said that the Trump administration views Iran as the paramount threat and focus in the Middle East, and that its strategy toward Iran is “max pressure, no regime change,” with the goal of stopping Iran’s nuclear program and ending its support for terrorist proxies.

“We are not in the business of deploying the 82nd Airborne to do regime changes anywhere. We don’t believe in that,” Gorka said. 

In the long term, he added, “we would like the people of Persia, including the minorities of Persia, to eventually liberate themselves.”

Trump had publicly floated the possibility of regime change in Iran after the U.S. strikes on the country last month, but subsequently said he does not seek regime change. Some administration officials had also floated the idea of sanctions relief for Iran.

Gorka said he backs efforts to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization, describing the group as the “granddaddy” of all of the terrorist organizations that have attacked the United States and its allies for decades. 

“If we can designate, as we have, Hamas, which in its founding charter from 1984 says, ‘We are a chapter of the Muslim Brotherhood,’ then why haven’t we designated the Brotherhood itself?”

“So what I’ll say right now,” Gorka said, clearing his throat, is, “I like the idea,” he finished in a whisper.

Asked by Jewish Insider about whether the administration is working to end Turkey and Qatar’s sponsorship of Hamas, he said that he is “imminently traveling to that part of the world, so that should tell you something.”

He added that Turkey is an “important nation, it’s a geopolitical nation, it has a role to play with us as a NATO nation, but there are things I will be discussing with Ankara that I find leave me with a sense of unease,” including the Turkish government’s relationship with Hamas as well as reports that ISIS terrorists have been moving through Turkey.

“There has to be a balance between their conceptualization of the PKK threat,” Gorka said, referring to the Kurdish militant group, “and threats that we share, such as ISIS. I think that’s where the rebalance has to come.”

“With regards to Qatar, Qatar has … a very simple choice it has to make. Do you give any kind of succor to those who do not help in the stabilization of the region? That’s all I’m going to say,” he continued.

In Gaza, Gorka said that there “are a lot of good things happening at a tactical and operational level” on the ground, in that the U.S. is working to train anti-Hamas police and security units and that those units are “working quite closely with Israel.”

But, he said, “as far as I’m concerned, none of that goes anywhere until the political leadership changes,” saying that the “cultural issue” of widespread support in Gaza for Hamas and the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel is a problem that cannot be solved by a police force. “We need some brave men and women to say, ‘I am here to help fix Gaza.’”

Gorka framed President Donald Trump’s proposal for the U.S. to take over Gaza and relocate the Palestinian population as a negotiating tactic to motivate Middle Eastern countries to step up to take responsibility and invest in Gaza — though that investment hasn’t yet come to fruition.

Gorka, who said he regularly watched videos of ISIS and Al-Qaida’s brutal torture and murder of their victims, described footage of the atrocities committed by Hamas on Oct. 7 as far beyond anything he had ever seen before. “Nothing I’d watched in my two decades prepared me for what I saw that day.”

“I praise the government of Israel. I praise the IDF because what they have done in response is a redrawing of the map of the Middle East that will change your politics for at least a century,” Gorka said. “One of the greatest things they have done is to ensure that the strategic threat of Iran is now incapable of resupplying its proxies in the territory of Syria. God bless Israel for doing that. Now we have to finish the job. We have to make sure Iran stops supplying its proxies. We have to stabilize Syria.”

He added that, “despite the ideological way it has been exploited by certain actors here and elsewhere, the response to Oct. 7 has actually benefited us, because people have woken up to the horrors of modern … Jew hatred.”

The White House advisor said that the administration has told Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa that the U.S. “want[s] him to make Syria great again,” and that doing so will require bringing all elements of Syria to the table, including Kurds, Christians, Alawites and Druze. Additionally, the U.S. has told those minority groups, including Kurdish allies, that it does not support them making pushes for autonomy.

“Come to the table, because this is your shot,” Gorka said. “Get in on that deal, because it’s the only time it’s going to happen.”

In the short term, he said, the administration wants to make sure those minority communities can protect themselves and to “make sure the state sees an end to the massacre of whichever confessional community.”

Asked by JI about the possibility of Iranian retaliatory attacks in the United States, Gorka said that “because of how we boxed in Iran, they are basically forced to use surrogates. … They can’t deploy their own assets, which is a good thing. Beyond that, we take it very seriously and that’s all I can say right now.”

He highlighted other recent intercepted plots, including one in the United Kingdom, where Iran has attempted to utilize Iranian expatriates to attack the Israeli Embassy, adding that the group has also sought to employ domestic criminal groups to carry out operations on its behalf.

Gorka praised Israel’s operations against Hezbollah in Lebanon, and noted that the country’s new president, Joseph Aoun, studied under him at the National Defense University.

“The relationship is positive but it could be improved in terms of matching verbiage to actual results,” he said.

Gorka previewed U.S. plans for a “series of short efforts, high-intensity efforts to make the leading terror threats to America combat-inneffective, at which point our friends, our allies, our partners in the Middle East and elsewhere pick up the terrorist suppression operations.” The goal, he explained, is to prevent terrorist groups from being able to carry out operations on U.S. soil.

He said that the U.S. does not want to maintain a global presence permanently to counter terrorism, though he added that the U.S. is willing to maintain a “small footprint” in certain locations to address specific threats.

He also emphasized the need for the U.S.’ Muslim partner nations to lead efforts to counter jihadist narratives and recruiting efforts, and poke holes in jihadist ideology.