Politics

How Michael Flynn won Trump the Arab vote

After a successful military career that latterly focused on counterterrorism, Donald Trump’s first pick for National Security Advisor continues to exert an influence almost eight years later

Dustin Franz / GETTY

Michael Flynn, the former US National Security advisor to former President Trump, speaks at a campaign event.

How Michael Flynn won Trump the Arab vote

Kamal Alam

last update on 23 Nov 2024

In the flurry of appointment announcements for the incoming Trump administration, one name missing so far is Trump’s favourite: General Michael Flynn. Although his name has popped up regularly in recent days, he may not get a role. This would be surprising because it was Flynn’s influence at the grassroots level that, in many ways, secured Trump crucial constituencies including army veterans, Christians, and the key Arab-American vote.

Whilst Flynn’s role with the veterans and Christian evangelical groups is well known, his trip to Michigan more than a year before the actual election was pivotal to Trump clinching the Arab and Muslim vote there. For years, Flynn has influenced Trump’s wider security, defence and Middle East policy. Even without an official role, he will have Trump’s ear until 2029. Who is he? To understand Flynn, the Arab vote and the Middle East, we first need to look at Flynn’s career.

Why Flynn matters

Trump has made no secret that this time, he will not let the ‘deep state’ (including the military-industrial complex) foil him. Flynn symbolises the ‘take-down’ of the first Trump administration. When Flynn was forced to resign as Trump’s first and favoured National Security Adviser just a few weeks into the job in 2017, many believe he took a hit for his boss.

Indeed, the FBI and its former director have admitted that going after Flynn was out of the ordinary. Flynn’s exoneration and later disclosure that he was blackmailed to plead guilty to protect his son made him a martyr in the Trump camp.

With Trump gearing up for his second term, the 'deep state' is in the crosshairs. In this, the president-elect is being encouraged not only by Flynn but also by the likes of Robert Kennedy, Kash Patel, and Vivek Ramaswamy, who rail against government overreach in everything from business to security to health. Few will be more crucial in an advisory capacity than Flynn, given his senior roles handling the most sensitive and strategic information and his knowledge of the power structures in America's military and security apparatus.

Flynn has long influenced Trump's defence and Middle East policy. Even without an official role, he will have Trump's ear.

Analysing US wars

Before his latest iteration, he was acknowledged as a gifted military officer by the likes of James Clapper, the former director of national intelligence, and Michael Hayden, a former CIA director. To this day, in military colleges, a book Flynn co-authored called Fixing Intel: A Blueprint for Making Intelligence Relevant in Afghanistan is seen as the blueprint on how not to win wars.

For his honesty in describing how the US was losing the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, President Barack Obama made him director of the Defence Intelligence Agency. Obama also forced him out when Flynn began speaking about America's 'forever wars.' It is these 'forever wars' that Trump and his cabinet want to end.

What Flynn saw and experienced overseas also resonates with Arab Americans. He was the first US official to point out Iran's support for terrorist groups that were predominantly Sunni, such as Al Qaeda, years before others realised it. Conventional wisdom was that Iran just backed Shiite groups.

In his book Fight the Field, however, he showed that this was incorrect both in Iraq and in Afghanistan. Iran was supporting the most violent Sunni jihadists who were fighting both the Americans and moderate Sunnis. It is partly for this reason that the Obama and Biden teams—who favoured a nuclear deal with Iran—wanted Flynn out of the system.

This is a seriously powerful speech that all Americans need to hear. During Trump's visit up to Dearborn. Historic really. #MAGA https://t.co/mwjgHUsYmY
— General Mike Flynn (@GenFlynn) November 2, 2024

Flipping Michigan

A lot has already been written about how and why Trump won in 2024. His endorsement by Arab and Muslim leaders in Michigan was hugely important, and it was Flynn's visit a year ago that helped dispel the image of Trump as anti-Muslim. He spoke with the mayor for over an hour. The mayor later endorsed Trump.

Flynn's outreach was reported in various US Muslim news sites. He spoke about wasteful foreign wars and the combined Abrahamic traditional family values that were at risk from the left and the Democrats. Flynn made clear that American Muslims were on the same page as American Christians: opposed to the terrorists he had fought overseas. Now, they should combine to protect America and family values. They warmed to that message.

The outspoken general had done much to secure the Arab vote long before Trump even travelled to Michigan or the national press reported it. Flynn also spoke about a joint Arab-Christian and Muslim effort.

Brad Hoff, a former US marine and co-author of Syria Crucified, said people tend to forget that long before he was brought into the first Trump administration, Flynn—as Director of the DIA—pushed back loudly against Obama's disastrous Syria policy.

Flynn made clear that American Muslims were on the same page as American Christians: opposed to the terrorists he had fought overseas.

Influencing policy

Flynn was saying that US policy was giving rise to terrorism in the region and this chimed with the views of many Arab Christians. It also resonated in American mosques, where many supported Flynn's view on combined Abrahamic heritage and US foreign policy in the Middle East. Maj. Gen. Jonathan Shaw, former head of the British SAS, recalled Flynn being "critical of the Syria operations which worked to conflicting purposes".

He added: "Both Gen. Petraeus and Gen. McChrystal were delusional i.e. Afghanistan and Iraq were failures of conception not execution. No one can change a nations culture and regime change always doomed to fail." Similarly, Maj. Rob Gallimore, who completed four tours of Afghanistan, recalled how Flynn "linked operational failure to overall strategic failure and also not linking 'forever wars' with local US politics."

Flynn not only helped Trump win Michigan but also helped change the strategic culture of Trump's team, specifically how they oversee foreign and defence policy. A lot of Trump's incoming cabinet are military veterans who looked up to Flynn in the battlefield. From Afghanistan to Damascus to Michigan, how Flynn's influence still resonates. Regardless of his role, he will have a voice.

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