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Four Presidents Said No: Bush, Obama, Biden, and Then Trump

If Iran was truly the danger it was said to be, why did three American Presidents in a row turn down the plan to attack it? And what changed with the fourth? According to a former U.S. Secretary of State, reported in Israel's oldest English-language newspaper, Benjamin Netanyahu brought attack plans to George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden. All three said no. Donald Trump said yes.

This page gathers what the record shows about those earlier refusals, and about how hard Israel's leaders worked to get around them.

Kerry: "all of whom refused, before Trump agreed"​

John Kerry was Secretary of State under President Obama and negotiated the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran. On April 10, 2026, he told the network MS NOW that Netanyahu had pitched war on Iran to every President before Trump. The Jerusalem Post reported it two days later:

"According to Kerry, Netanyahu had presented presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden with plans to attack Iran, all of whom refused, before he received an affirmative response from current US President Donald Trump."

Kerry described the pitch in his own words:

"Prime Minister Netanyahu made a basically four-point pitch, saying that they could kill the leadership, they could incite a change of regime etcetera, they would destroy the military etcetera. Well, they've obviously hurt the military enormously... But the fact is that there was no imminent threat."

He said Trump agreed "after persuasion from Netanyahu," and had left the Iran agreement "not for substantive reasons, but because president Obama did it" (Jerusalem Post, Tzvi Jasper, April 12, 2026, "Netanyahu presented Iran attack plan to former US presidents, former secretary of state claims"). Kerry cited the New York Times reconstruction of how Netanyahu convinced Trump, which is covered on the Situation Room pitch.

Note the source: an Israeli newspaper, reporting that the Israeli prime minister asked three Presidents for a war on Iran and was refused. The four points are the same ones that became the 2026 war: kill the leadership, change the regime, destroy the military.

Bush: the Iraq war first​

Under Bush, Netanyahu's public ask was Iraq first, then Iran (see his 2002 testimony). A 2023 video circulated in 2025 made the same claim about the Bush years in the voice of an unnamed speaker: "Wolfowitz as undersecretary of defense manipulated President Bush, number two, back into Iraq. They pushed definitely, definitely to try and get Bush before he left to move into Iran" (Wall Street Apes on X, October 13, 2023, video; the speaker is not identified in the post). Paul Wolfowitz was Deputy Secretary of Defense. In November 2010, WikiLeaks cables were headlined as showing "Israel Pushed For US To Approve Strike On Iran" (Reddit, November 30, 2010).

Obama: "absolutely not"​

In July 2009, after Vice President Biden said Israel could decide for itself what to do about Iran, President Obama said his administration was "absolutely not" giving Israel a green light to strike (CNN, July 7, 2009). Trita Parsi of the Quincy Institute, a think tank that favors restraint, told The Intercept that "Obama's clear opposition played a crucial role in the internal deliberations of the Israeli cabinet in 2010 and 2011" (The Intercept, May 24, 2023). In other words: when an American President said no, Israel did not strike. The veto was real, and it was in Washington's hands.

Obama then signed the 2015 nuclear deal over Netanyahu's appeal to Congress (see his 2015 speech).

The Bennett years: Netanyahu called telling Washington "a grave mistake"​

In December 2021, out of office, Netanyahu attacked the government of Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid for agreeing to tell the United States in advance about operations against Iran, after a New York Times report that Israel had consulted Washington before covert strikes. As summarized from a Times of Israel report:

"I saw the report in the New York Times that Israel is updating the United States regarding its operations and plans vis-a-vis Iran. If this is true, this is a grave mistake."

He said the "no surprises" pledge "is in effect an invitation to thwart any significant operation that can stop the nuclear program" (Reddit autotldr of the Times of Israel report, December 14, 2021; the NYT report as summarized, December 11, 2021). His view was plain: an American veto was an obstacle to be avoided.

Biden: joint planning, "freedom of action," but no strike​

Under Biden the pressure grew and the answer softened without turning into yes. A U.S. intelligence report leaked in 2023, produced by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence on February 23 of that year, said an Israeli air exercise was "probably to simulate a strike on Iran's nuclear program" and that "Netanyahu probably calculates Israel will need to strike Iran to deter its nuclear program." It also said: "CIA does not know Israel's near term plans and intentions" (The Intercept, May 24, 2023; Ken Klippenstein's post: X, May 24, 2023).

The same article records the Biden officials' words: National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said the President would act "including by recognizing Israel's freedom of action," and Ambassador Tom Nides said "Israel can and should do whatever they need to deal with [Iran] and we've got their back." Retired intelligence officer Paul Pillar warned: "I believe the administration is playing with fire with this kind of rhetoric and with the joint military planning." CIA Director William Burns said in February 2023 that "we don't believe that the Supreme Leader in Iran has yet made a decision to resume the weaponization program."

The Israeli journalist Nadav Eyal wrote on the morning of June 13, 2025 that planning for the strike "began during the Biden administration. And it was quietly signaled by some U.S. officials that helping Israel in a strike on Iran - or even carrying one out themselves- was not entirely off the table" (Nadav Eyal on X, June 13, 2025). In April 2024, after Iran's first direct barrage on Israel, analyst Shaiel Ben-Ephraim reported that war-cabinet members Benny Gantz and Gadi Eisenkot "immediately" asked for a strike on Iran because "They were concerned that American pressure would arrive"; then "Biden, the UK, and France asked for restraint" (Ben-Ephraim on X, April 14, 2024).

Trump: the one who said yes, and the one Israel once left alone​

Trump's first term shows both sides of the relationship. By his own account in October 2023, Israel was supposed to join the January 2020 strike that killed Iranian General Qassem Soleimani and pulled out the night before: "The night before it happened, I got a call that Israel will not be participating in this attack... I'll never forget that Bibi Netanyahu let us down," adding that Netanyahu "tried to take credit for it" (@MJTruthUltra on X, October 12, 2023, video; the poster marks one passage as paraphrase).

In his second term, the answer to Netanyahu's pitch was yes. As one commenter put it in September 2026: "israel asked every president before trump to attack iran and they said no? trump was the only guy who said yes" (@gillysuit21 on X, September 14, 2026). That is a blunt summary, but it matches what Kerry told MS NOW and what the Jerusalem Post printed.

What this shows​

  1. The request was constant for more than twenty years and came from Israel's prime minister.
  2. Three Presidents treated it as a request they could refuse, and when they refused, Israel did not act alone on Iran's nuclear sites. American participation was the point.
  3. The war came when a President said yes, "after persuasion from Netanyahu," in Kerry's words, with "no imminent threat."
ClaimRating
Netanyahu presented Iran attack plans to Bush, Obama, and Biden, who refused (per Kerry, reported by the Jerusalem Post)STRONG
Obama publicly refused Israel a green light in 2009CONFIRMED
U.S. intelligence in 2023 assessed Netanyahu believed Israel would need to strike IranCONFIRMED
Trump agreed after Netanyahu's persuasionSTRONG

Status: Benjamin Netanyahu, John Kerry, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Donald Trump, Trita Parsi, Jake Sullivan, Tom Nides, Paul Pillar, William Burns, Nadav Eyal, Naftali Bennett, Yair Lapid, Benny Gantz, Gadi Eisenkot, Shaiel Ben-Ephraim, and Paul Wolfowitz are alive.

Sources​

Last Updated: 2026-09-26

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