← Who Pushed the Iran War
Think Tanks and Iraq-War Veterans Who Urged Striking Iran
A think tank is a private research institute that writes policy papers, testifies to Congress, and places its experts on television and in government jobs. When a President faces a choice about war, the options on his desk were usually drafted, or argued for in public, by people at these institutes. That is why it matters who wrote the case for bombing Iran, who pays them, and what they said the last time they sold America a war.
This page teaches a simple finding. A small circle of Washington institutes closely tied to Israel and to its lobby, above all the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA), and the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, supplied the plans, the talking points, and even the official list of grievances the White House used to justify the war. Many of their leading voices are the same people who promised that invading Iraq in 2003 would be quick and would reshape the region. And the blueprint for letting Israel strike first so America could follow had been published in plain English in 2009.
The plan: JINSA named Fordow two months early
On April 9, 2025, JINSA published Last Best Chance: U.S. Policy for an Israeli Strike on Iran. It urged the United States to back an Israeli attack with refueling, rescue, intelligence, air defense, and "transferring critical capabilities to Israel," and to collaborate on the hardest target, Iran's "deeply-buried Fordow facility." It told Washington to treat the operation as "a long-term campaign, and not a one-off strike" (JINSA, April 9, 2025). Only the United States has the 30,000-pound bunker-buster and the B-2 bomber that can reach Fordow. On June 22, 2025, America used exactly those weapons on exactly that site.
Read more: JINSA
The case for war: copied from FDD
On March 2, 2026, two days into the second war, the White House published "The Iranian Regime's Decades of Terrorism against American Citizens," a list of 44 incidents and 992 American deaths. Statistician Stephen McIntyre showed, in a thread seen about 2.8 million times, that the list was "virtually identical" to one written for FDD by Tzvi Kahn, a former AIPAC staffer, and published June 19, 2025, "literally on the eve of the first US bombing of Iran" (McIntyre on X, March 19, 2026). The White House's own justification for war was, in substance, a lobbyist's list.
Read more: The White House list copied from FDD
FDD: "only Trump can finish it"
FDD's chief executive, Mark Dubowitz, summed up the June 2025 war in one line: "Israel started this operation, but only Trump can finish it." Its senior fellow Edmund Fitton-Brown, eight days into the 2026 war: "The question is not why the US and Israel attacked Iran in June 2025 and then again these past 8 days. It's why we didn't do it years ago." Several writers note that FDD was founded in 2001 under the name Emet, Hebrew for "truth," with a stated IRS mission "to enhance Israel's image in North America."
Read more: The Foundation for Defense of Democracies
The Washington Institute: "How America gets to war"
The Washington Institute was founded in 1985 by people connected to AIPAC. Three days before the 2026 war its managing director recommended that the United States "launch limited military strikes" on Iran. A 2012 video, leaked in 2020, shows its research director, Patrick Clawson, speaking on "How America 'Gets to War'" with Iran.
Read more: The Washington Institute
The 2009 blueprint: "Leave it to Bibi"
In 2009 the Brookings Institution published Which Path to Persia? Its chapter "Leave it to Bibi" discussed a plan in which "the United States would encourage—and perhaps even assist—the Israelis in conducting the strikes themselves, in the expectation that both international criticism and Iranian retaliation would be deflected away from the United States and onto Israel." In 2025 Israel struck first and America followed. In February 2026 senior White House advisers argued, per Politico, that the politics would be "a lot better" if Israel went first again.
Read more: Brookings, "Which Path to Persia?"
Who pays the experts
Quincy Institute researcher Nick Cleveland-Stout tracked more than $42 million from defense contractors to Washington think tanks since 2019, including $12.8 million to the Atlantic Council and $8.85 million to the Center for a New American Security. Journalist Eli Clifton reported that FDD, the American Enterprise Institute, the Hudson Institute, and the Washington Institute "were among the top think tanks cheerleading the war in Iran." The experts on television were paid, in part, by the companies refilling the missiles.
Read more: Defense money behind think tanks
The Iraq-war veterans
John Bolton signed the 1998 letter urging the removal of Saddam Hussein; on June 22, 2025 he wrote, "Now, on to regime change." Douglas Feith and Richard Perle co-wrote the 1996 Clean Break paper for Benjamin Netanyahu, which called for removing Saddam and rolling back Iran. Netanyahu himself testified to Congress in 2002 that invading Iraq would have "enormous positive reverberations," and that he would like to see regime change in Iran "just as" in Iraq. The same roster, the same promises, a new target.
Read more: Iraq-war veterans and the Clean Break
Go deeper
How strong is the evidence?
| Claim | Rating | Page |
|---|---|---|
| JINSA published a plan for U.S. support of an Israeli strike naming Fordow two months before the June 2025 strikes | CONFIRMED | JINSA |
| The White House's March 2, 2026 list of Iranian attacks matches FDD's list by a former AIPAC staffer | STRONG | White House list |
| FDD was founded as Emet with a mission to enhance Israel's image | MODERATE (per its IRS filing as quoted) | FDD |
| A 2009 Brookings paper described letting Israel strike first so retaliation falls on Israel | CONFIRMED | Brookings |
| Pro-war think tanks receive tens of millions from defense contractors | STRONG | Defense money |
| Leading advocates of the Iraq war urged the Iran war | CONFIRMED | Iraq-war veterans |
Status: Michael Makovsky, Mark Dubowitz, Edmund Fitton-Brown, Tzvi Kahn, Stephen McIntyre, Michael Singh, Patrick Clawson, Kenneth Pollack, Nick Cleveland-Stout, Eli Clifton, John Bolton, Douglas Feith, Richard Perle, and Benjamin Netanyahu are alive. Their published advocacy is legal; this page does not state that any of them committed a crime.
Sources
- JINSA, April 9, 2025.
- McIntyre on X, March 19, 2026.
- FDD, June 21, 2025.
- Fitton-Brown on X, March 8, 2026.
- Washington Institute, February 25, 2026.
- Greg C. on X, September 26, 2026 — Brookings quote.
- X news summary, March 18, 2026 — think-tank funding.
- Eli Clifton on X, April 14, 2026.
- Bolton on X, June 22, 2025.
Related Areas
Last Updated: 2026-09-26