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The Documents Behind the List: One Line of Thought from 1982 to 2002

After 9/11, General Wesley Clark says, a Pentagon officer told him about a memo from the Secretary of Defense's office describing "how we're going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran" (Democracy Now, March 2, 2007). That memo has never been released. But the thinking behind it was published, step by step, over the twenty years before it. This page shows the four documents in order, what each one added, and the people who carried the line from an Israeli journal into the U.S. Pentagon.

The short version: an Israeli strategy for breaking up the Arab states (1982) became a plan written by Americans for Israel's prime minister (1996), then a program demanded of American presidents by the same circle (1998–2001), and finally the work of a Pentagon office run by the plan's authors (2002). At each step the countries stayed the same and the soldiers changed. The 1996 paper said Israel would not need American troops. By 2003 American troops were in Baghdad, and in 2026 America is at war with the last name on the list, Iran.

The chain in one table

Year	Document	Who	What it said about the list	Page
1982	"A Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties"	Oded Yinon, in a World Zionist Organization journal	Break Iraq, Syria, Lebanon apart; Libya and Sudan would follow Egypt's collapse	The Yinon Plan
1996	"A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm"	Richard Perle's study group, principal author David Wurmser, for Netanyahu	Remove Saddam "an important Israeli strategic objective"; roll back Syria; engage Hizballah, Syria, and Iran	A Clean Break
1998–2001	PNAC letters and Rebuilding America's Defenses	William Kristol, Robert Kagan, Perle, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and others	Regime change in Iraq; "a new Pearl Harbor"; after 9/11, remove Saddam "even if evidence does not link Iraq" and threaten Iran and Syria	PNAC
2001	Wurmser paper	David Wurmser	U.S. and Israel to "strike fatally ... Damascus, Baghdad, Tripoli, Tehran and Gaza"	David Wurmser
Fall 2001	The memo Clark described	Office of the Secretary of Defense	Seven countries, Iraq first, Iran last	The country list
2002	Office of Special Plans	Douglas Feith's policy office; Abram Shulsky; Wurmser	Built the false Iraq–al-Qaeda case for war	The Office of Special Plans

Step 1, 1982: the Israeli picture of the region

The Yinon essay described the Arab world as "a temporary house of cards put together by foreigners" and set Israel's aim: "To survive, Israel must 1) become an imperial regional power, and 2) must effect the division of the whole area into small states by the dissolution of all existing Arab states." Iraq's dissolution was "even more important for us than that of Syria." Five of Clark's seven countries appear in it as states Israel expected, or wanted, to break apart. Its translator, the Israeli Israel Shahak, warned that the aim of Israel's leaders was "to deceive the Americans after he has deceived all the rest," and noted the essay's "strong connection with Neo-Conservative thought in the USA." In 2017, scholars Ted Becker and Brian Polkinghorn argued that "Yinon's plan was adopted and refined in" A Clean Break.

Step 2, 1996: Americans write the plan for Israel

Fourteen years later a study group of Americans, led by Richard Perle and written mostly by David Wurmser, gave Israel's new prime minister a plan. It named the Middle East core of the later list, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon's Hizballah, and Iran, and it called removing Saddam "an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right." Its method, "severing the Shia-Syrian-Iranian axis," is the aim of every war on the list since. The Congressional Record says Netanyahu did not adopt it as Israeli policy, "so Perle started working for a similar approach to the Mideast for the United States."

Step 3, 1997–2001: the same demands, made of American presidents

In 1997 William Kristol and Robert Kagan founded the Project for the New American Century. In 1998 its letter, signed by Perle, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and fifteen others, asked President Clinton to make removing Saddam "the aim of American foreign policy," naming "our friends and allies like Israel." In September 2000 its report said the military transformation it wanted would be slow "absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor." Nine days after 9/11, its letter to President Bush named the same four countries the 1996 paper had named for Israel: Iraq, Syria, Lebanon's Hezbollah, and Iran.

Step 4, 2001–2003: the authors take the jobs

By the fall of 2001 the study leader of the 1996 paper chaired the Secretary of Defense's advisory board; a participant, Douglas Feith, ran the Secretary's policy branch; the principal author, David Wurmser, worked in a secret unit in Feith's office; and PNAC's signers were Secretary and Deputy Secretary of Defense. That is the office Clark said the seven-country memo came from. Feith's Office of Special Plans then produced the Iraq–al-Qaeda case that the Pentagon's own Inspector General later called "inappropriate," and that the record proved false. Israeli visitors were "waved in on Mr Feith's authority."

The people who carried it

Richard Perle — Clean Break study leader; PNAC signer; Defense Policy Board chairman
Douglas Feith — Clean Break participant; Under Secretary of Defense for Policy; ran the Office of Special Plans

David Wurmser — Clean Break's principal author; Pentagon intelligence unit; Cheney's Middle East adviser
The eight Clean Break participants and the people of PNAC

What the line of thought produced

The documents did not name all seven countries in one place until the memo Clark described. Together they do. Yinon supplies Libya and Sudan; A Clean Break supplies Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Iran; Wurmser's 2001 paper names Tripoli beside Damascus, Baghdad, and Tehran; and Rumsfeld's own September 30, 2001 memo names Iraqis, Lebanese, and Sudanese as allies to recruit and calls for "new regimes." One researcher summed up the chain: "Israeli Yinon Plan in 1982, morphs into A Clean Break doctrine in 1996, turns into the Pentagon's we'll-take-out-7-countries-in-5-years post 9/11 plan" (@DaliaCanora on X, December 17, 2024). Economist Jeffrey Sachs: the list General Clark provided was one "that Israel, Netanyahu and his U.S. backers set out already in the 1990s ... a list agreed in 2001 based on a list from 1996" (video posted by @upholdreality, December 9, 2024).

What happened to each of the seven, one by one, is on the countries page.

Claim	Rating	Page
The Yinon essay called for breaking up Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon, and expected Libya and Sudan to fall apart	CONFIRMED	The Yinon Plan
A Clean Break called removing Saddam "an important Israeli strategic objective" and named Iraq, Syria, Lebanon's Hizballah, and Iran	CONFIRMED	A Clean Break
Clean Break's leader, a participant, and its principal author held Pentagon or White House posts when the Iraq war was decided	CONFIRMED	Participants
PNAC demanded Saddam's removal before and after 9/11 and named Iran and Syria for retaliation	CONFIRMED	PNAC
Feith's office produced an Iraq–al-Qaeda case the Inspector General called "inappropriate"	CONFIRMED	Office of Special Plans
The documents form one line of thought that the post-9/11 list carried out, ending with Iran	STRONG	this page
Israeli officials entered the Pentagon on Feith's authority outside normal controls	MODERATE	Israel connection

Last Updated: 2026-09-26

The chain in one table​

Step 1, 1982: the Israeli picture of the region​

Step 2, 1996: Americans write the plan for Israel​

Step 3, 1997–2001: the same demands, made of American presidents​

Step 4, 2001–2003: the authors take the jobs​

The people who carried it​

What the line of thought produced​

Related Areas​