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Seven Myths About the Iran War

On 13 April 2026, Tablet Magazine published Seven Myths About the Iran War, a column by Michael Doran. Tablet describes him as a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. An American family should care because one of his seven "myths" is the claim that Israel dragged the United States into the Iran war. His answer is that Israel can fight a hard war without American ground troops, meaning US soldiers fighting on land.

Background for a new reader. The United States and Israel began bombing Iran on 28 February 2026. By April the question in Washington was still whether American ground troops would go into Iran, and a public argument had opened over whether Israel had pulled the United States into the war. This column is one side of that argument.

Evidence rating: MODERATE. This rates a named commentator's argument in Tablet Magazine, answering critics who said Israel pulled the United States into the war. He quotes the 2026 National Defense Strategy as calling Israel a "model ally"; this page did not open that strategy. His claim sits beside a State Department legal opinion that says the opposite, below.

What the article says

Doran argues that President Donald Trump's Iran campaign is hard for critics to read because it is two fights at once: a battlefield fight against Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the state's powerful military force separate from the regular army, and a fight inside America over whether the United States should use force at all. He says progressives and some America First voices make the same case: pull back, talk to Iran, and put distance between the United States and Israel.

The section that matters here is the one he titles as the myth that Israel dragged America into the war. He writes that Sullivan, on Jon Stewart's show, said he never bought the crude theory that Israel wags the American dog. Doran then says Sullivan still treated the war as something that serves Israeli aims more than American ones. Doran also describes a New York Times account of a February 2026 White House meeting in which, he writes, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pitched regime change and Trump sounded interested. Doran says that story leaves out a threat he believes was already on Trump's desk, shared by Israel and the United States.

Doran writes that the United States led the operation as the senior partner and that Trump took responsibility for it. He says the administration treats the US-Israel military relationship as a model. He quotes the 2026 National Defense Strategy as calling Israel a "model ally" that is willing and able to defend itself with critical but limited US support, and he says that ally does not ask the United States to fight on its behalf.

Israel stands out as nearly unique among America's partners: It is one of the very few allies capable of independently prosecuting sustained, high-intensity military campaigns without requiring American ground troops or direct combat involvement.

Michael Doran, Tablet Magazine, 13 April 2026.

Doran presents that self-reliance as the point of the alliance. He contrasts it with allies that need a large American force presence. Elsewhere in the column he writes that 13 US service members had been killed, which he calls serious but far from the thousands of dead that critics had predicted. He does not say in that sentence where those service members died.

What other reporting and posts add

• A US government document uses the opposite words. Snopes, 30 April 2026, rated True the claim that a US document said the United States entered the war "at the request of" Israel. It quotes State Department legal adviser Reed Rubinstein: the US entered "at the request of and in the collective self-defense of its Israeli ally, as well as in the exercise of the United States' own inherent right of self-defense." Snopes notes other documents say "in cooperation with" instead. Snopes. (capture: twitter/t13__v146.md)
• Trump's version. Trump in the Oval Office on 3 March 2026, as the Jerusalem Journal quotes him: "Based on the way the negotiation was going, I thought they [Iran] were going to attack first. If anything, I might have forced Israel's hand." Jerusalem Journal. (capture: twitter/t13__v146.md)
• Netanyahu's version. At a 3 June 2026 news conference, in C-SPAN's capitalized transcript: "ISRAEL DID NOT DRAG THE U.S. INTO A CONFLICT WITH IRAN." C-SPAN. (capture: twitter/t13__v145.md)
• Israel and ground troops. Doran's point that Israel does not ask the US to fight for it sits next to Israeli reporting that Israel would not send its own infantry into a US ground operation. The most-repeated version is an X trending page from 29 March 2026 citing Channel 12. A smaller trending page two days later cautioned that the Channel 12 line had "No direct confirmation" on Channel 12's site or on Haaretz. Channel 12 summary; caution. (capture: twitter/t13__v150.md)
• A pro-Israel commentator's line. Ben Shapiro, as quoted in a 16 September 2026 post, argued Israel does not run US policy because otherwise "[There'd] be 200,000 American troops right now in Tehran!" (capture: twitter/t13__v152.md)

What it shows

Doran's defense of the alliance makes the section's point in its own words: Israel is "capable of independently prosecuting sustained, high-intensity military campaigns without requiring American ground troops." Part of the reason is that Israel keeps its own infantry out of Iran: Israel's press reported that Israeli soldiers would stay out of any US ground operation. The question of who drew whom into the war has a written answer from the US government itself: the State Department's legal adviser wrote that the United States entered "at the request of and in the collective self-defense of its Israeli ally." Meanwhile the Pentagon was already preparing weeks of American ground operations (see Israel Keeps Its Infantry Home, Israeli Leaders on a Ground War, and Pentagon Ground Plans 2026).

Check it yourself

Read the Tablet column: Seven Myths About the Iran War.

Status: Donald Trump is alive. Benjamin Netanyahu is alive. Jake Sullivan is alive.

Research captures: twitter/t13__v146.md, twitter/t13__v145.md, twitter/t13__v152.md, twitter/t13__v150.md

Last Updated: 2026-09-26