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A Long Pattern: Pro-Israel Voices and American Troops Against Iran

The call for American soldiers in Iran did not start in 2026. For a decade, Israeli officials and pro-Israel journals and think tanks have argued for American troops to be placed, kept, and used against Iran, while reassuring Americans each time that a real ground war was not on the table. Then the ground plans came. This page traces that pattern from 2017 to 2026.

Evidence ratings: CONFIRMED for the published statements below. MODERATE that the Israeli government pressed for the 2019 US troop increase (a Wall Street Journal report, denied by the administration at the time). STRONG that the pattern, American troops moved closer to Iran at pro-Israel urging while Israeli infantry stays out, runs from 2017 through 2026.

A line to keep crisp​

This investigation is about the Israeli state, its government and intelligence services, its lobby in Washington, and the officials and writers who argue its case. It is not about Jewish people as a people or a religion. In June 2025 the Forward reported on posts claiming Jews would drag Americans into a war they would not fight themselves, including a post by Simon Goddek: "If America goes to war with Iran, Jewish Americans get drafted first." The Forward called the "Jews do not serve" claim an old antisemitic trope, used by the Nazis against German Jews who had fought in World War I (article page). This investigation rejects that trope. Jewish Americans serve in the US military, as the Forward documented. The question here is narrower and harder: which governments and lobbies pushed for American soldiers to fight Iran, and what did they say?

Step one: keep American troops near Iran (2017–2020)​

  • 2017, Fathom Journal: Michael Herzog, later Israel's ambassador in Washington, urged the US and UK to use troops "originally deployed to fight ISIS" to "block Iran's plans, rather than withdrawing them following the defeat of ISIS" (article page).
  • 2018, Fathom Journal: Jonathan Paris told Americans that Israel "mitigates the necessity to send US troops there" (article page).
  • 2019, Wall Street Journal via JTA: a planned 14,000-troop US increase to counter Iran "came in part at the behest of the Israeli government" (article page). The same year the New York Times reported a Pentagon plan for up to 120,000 troops for a war with Iran.
  • 2020, Canadian Jewish News: an Israeli analyst counted about sixty American bases around Iran (article page).

Go deeper: 2019: 14,000 troops and American troops as a regional shield.

Step two: reassure Americans (June 2025 – March 2026)​

When the US joined Israel's June 2025 war with bombers, pro-Israel outlets told American readers not to fear another Iraq:

  • The Forward, 19 June 2025 (Dan Perry): "there is no serious indication that the U.S. intends to invade Iran or carry out regime change through boots on the ground" (article page).
  • Cleveland Jewish News, 26 June 2025 (Jonathan Tobin, editor in chief of JNS): "Unlike Bush, Trump has no interest in making Iran democratic or in nation-building there. Nor is he contemplating a ground war invasion" (article page).
  • JINSA, 4 March 2026 (Blaise Misztal), titled "Iran is Not Iraq": "Not only do they not have boots on the ground ..." while noting that Defense Secretary Hegseth "refused to rule it out" (article page).

The same week as the Forward's reassurance, an unnamed senior US official told Axios that "Israelis are effectively encouraging the US to engage in a ground war with Iran if an air war doesn't immobilize Iranian nuclear sites," and that the Israelis said they may "do it with humans" (Did Israel Ask?).

Step three: the ground plans (March 2026 onward)​

Within four weeks of JINSA's "Iran is Not Iraq," CBS reported "detailed preparations for deploying U.S. ground forces into Iran," the Washington Post reported preparations for "weeks of ground operations," the 82nd Airborne and two Marine Expeditionary Units were sent, and Israel's Channel 12 reported that Israeli infantry would not join (Pentagon Ground Plans 2026; Israel Keeps Its Infantry Home). Israel's prime minister said "there has to be a ground component." By August, the Jerusalem Post was printing a plan for 750,000 to 1.5 million American troops (The Jerusalem Post Column).

Reassurance, then escalation. The reassurance was about the first step. The plans were for the next ones.

Another capital, the same ask​

Israel was not alone. The New York Times reported, and the Times of Israel relayed on 24 March 2026, that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman "even advocated for US boots on the ground in order to take control of energy sites and topple the regime." Go deeper: The Saudi crown prince and US boots.

What Americans were saying​

The Anti-Defamation League's Center on Extremism, tracking reactions after 28 February 2026, called "'Americans Dying for Israel' / The U.S. as Israel's Military Proxy" "the most dominant and cross-ideological throughline" it tracked. It recorded that Marine veteran Sgt. Brian McGinnis was removed from a 4 March Capitol Hill hearing after shouting "America does not want to send its sons and daughters to war for Israel!" (as quoted in the Forward article page). The Times of Israel reported a reservist telling HuffPost that service members were saying they do not want to die for Israel, and a poll finding 56 percent of Americans thought the war benefits Israel more than the United States (article page).

The US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, answered in an interview with Ynet, as quoted on X: "Not one time since 1948 has America ever put boots on the ground for Israel," and "Israel is maybe the appetizer, but we're the entree." The American bases, missile-defense crews, airlifts, and interceptors of the past decade, and the ground plans of 2026, are the record that line has to stand against.

Where this pattern comes from​

The strategic plan behind it is older than any of these articles: the 1996 "A Clean Break" paper written for Netanyahu, the post-9/11 list of seven countries that General Wesley Clark said the Pentagon planned to take down, ending with Iran, and the Greater Israel vision Netanyahu said he connects to "very much." See the Pentagon's list of wars and Greater Israel.

Go deeper​

The articles on this page's shelf​

Status: Michael Herzog is alive. Jonathan Paris is alive. Dan Perry is alive. Jonathan Tobin is alive. Blaise Misztal is alive. Mohammed bin Salman is alive. Mike Huckabee is alive. Brian McGinnis is alive. Simon Goddek is alive.

Sources​

Last Updated: 2026-09-26

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