{"id":66294,"date":"2026-04-14T05:42:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T05:42:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/66294\/"},"modified":"2026-04-14T05:42:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T05:42:10","slug":"think-the-iran-war-is-a-disaster-blame-these-dc-think-tanks-first","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/66294\/","title":{"rendered":"Think the Iran war is a disaster? Blame these DC think tanks first."},"content":{"rendered":"

If the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran<\/a> is ultimately assessed as a defeat, some measure of blame could be cast on five pro-Israel \u201cthink tanks\u201d that consistently promoted military action against the Islamic Republic in the eight months before it began, according to analyses by four different widely used AI programs.<\/p>\n

The Foundation for Defense of Democracies<\/a> (FDD), the American Enterprise Institute<\/a> (AEI), the Hudson Institute<\/a>, and the Washington Institute for Near East Policy<\/a> (WINEP) ranked among the top six think tanks identified by the AI models as the \u201cmost prominent in promoting military action against Tehran\u201d during the period between the \u201cTwelve-Day War\u201d in June 2025 and the current war\u2019s launch on February 28.<\/p>\n

A fifth think tank, the more traditionally right-wing Heritage Foundation<\/a>, was also included by three of the apps as among the top six think tanks promoting military actions against Iran. <\/p>\n

Unsurprisingly, four platforms \u2013 Gemini, ChatGPT, Claude, and Grok \u2013 identified the same five Washington-based institutions as also having played leading roles in promoting the U.S. invasion of Iraq 23 years ago.<\/p>\n

Of the five, FDD, AEI, Hudson, and WINEP fall squarely into the neoconservative camp<\/a> of U.S. foreign policy hawks in that support for Israel<\/a> is a central principle of their world views and work. Indeed, the organization that claimed the top spot for prominence in promoting war against Iran in all four AI apps was FDD, whose original submission to the IRS<\/a> in 2001 described its mission as \u201cprovid(ing) education to enhance Israel\u2019s image in North America<\/a> and the public\u2019s understanding of issues affecting Israeli-Arab relations.\u201d <\/p>\n

The Heritage Foundation \u2014 which identifies itself as pursuing an \u201cAmerica First\u201d foreign policy<\/a> \u2014 has long promoted close ties with Israel. A \u201cSpecial Report\u201d<\/a> published by Heritage in March 20025 called for transforming U.S.-Israeli relations from a mere \u201cspecial relationship\u201d to a \u201cstrategic partnership.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cExperts\u201d from all five organizations repeatedly propounded some or all of the same themes \u2014 that Iran\u2019s nuclear program and missile arsenal posed an unacceptable threat to Israel and eventually to the U.S. homeland, that the regime was still \u201cthe world\u2019s leading state sponsor of terrorism,\u201d<\/a> and that it was at the weakest point since the 1979 Revolution.<\/p>\n

They pressed these points in congressional testimony, on the op-ed and news pages of major print and online publications, in broadcast television and radio interviews, and on social media<\/a>, notably X, in what were clearly efforts to persuade elites and the public to accept the necessity of military action against the Islamic Republic. These arguments echoed the same themes as those propagated by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as well as well-known pro-Israel hawks in the U.S. Congress, such as Sen. Lindsey Graham<\/a>, in their appearances on U.S. broadcast media.<\/p>\n

As can be seen in the table below, three of the AI apps identified several additional neoconservative-led think tanks among the six most prominent promoters of military action, including the Jewish Institute for National Security of America<\/a> (JINSA), the Center for Security Policy<\/a> (CSP), and the Institute for the Study of War<\/a> (ISW), which was founded by neoconservative military analyst Kimberly Kagan in 2007. \u201cWhile ISW positions itself as analytical rather than explicitly advocacy-oriented, its framing of Iranian threats consistently supported the case for military actions,\u201d according to Claude. <\/p>\n

Over the past quarter century, the foreign policy orientation of FDD, AEI, Hudson, JINSA, and CSP has been hardline neoconservative; their positions, particularly with respect to the Middle East<\/a>, have generally reflected the views of Netanyahu\u2019s Likud Party<\/a>. WINEP, which was created in 1985 as a spin-off of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, hosts fellows with a more diverse range of views, especially regarding Israeli-Palestinian relations.<\/p>\n

ChatGPT also included the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and the Atlantic Council (AC), which it described as \u201cmainstream security think tanks,\u201d among the six most prominent war promoters. Regarding CSIS, ChatGPT noted that its position was \u201coften framed as \u2018strategic analysis,\u2019 but many publications discuss feasibility and strategic benefits of military strikes.\u201d As for the Atlantic Council, ChatGPT said, \u201cMixed views internally, but several fellows have supported military action as a deterrent.\u201d<\/p>\n

All four apps were asked to \u201cidentify the ten U.S. think tanks that were most prominent in U.S. print media, broadcast media, online media, and social media in promoting a U.S. attack on Iran between July 1, 2025, and February 27, 2026, in order of prominence.\u201d<\/p>\n

Each defined \u201cprominence\u201d in its own way. ChatGPT, for example, defined it as \u201cthe institutions most consistently visible\u201d in the various media, while Grok ranked only those \u201cwhose experts dominated congressional testimony on Iran, produced supportive op-eds\/policy papers, appeared on broadcast panels justifying or advancing strikes\/escalation, and drove online\/social-media content framing the actions as necessary for regime weakening or surrender.\u201d Unlike the other apps that ranked ten think tanks, Grok identified only six, noting that the \u201ctop tier (was) clear but that the prominence of others in the media that could be characterized as \u201cpure \u2018promotion\u2019\u201d drops sharply after #6\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

These were the results:<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

The four apps were then asked, \u201cWhat is the overlap between these think tanks and those that promoted the military invasion of Iraq in the eight months prior to March 19, 2003?\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

As noted by Gemini, \u201cThe overlap between the think tank environments of 2003 and 2026 is significant, as several institutions that provided the intellectual architecture for the Iraq War remained the primary drivers of the narrative favoring military action against Iran.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Grok cited FDD at the top, it bears noting that the group was only two years old in 2003 and worked very much in the shadow of more established neoconservative think tanks, of which AEI was clearly dominant due in large part to its \u201cPrince of Darkness,<\/a>\u201d Richard Perle<\/a>. Perle, who had served on the advisory or executive boards of FDD, WINEP, Hudson, CSP, and JINSA, and was a charter signatory in 1997 of the Project for the New American Century<\/a> (PNAC) along with the most determined champions of invading Iraq inside the future George W. Bush administration, including Dick Cheney<\/a>, Donald Rumsfeld<\/a>, Paul Wolfowitz<\/a>, and Elliott Abrams<\/a>, all of whom Perle had worked with going back to the 1970s. <\/p>\n

Given these well-established connections and as Rumsfeld\u2019s Defense Policy Board<\/a> in the run-up to the invasion, Perle and his neoconservative collaborators played a unique role<\/a>, from both within and outside the administration, in building and enhancing an echo chamber whose coordinated messaging resonated much more effectively with the mass media and the public at large<\/a> than was the case in the run-up<\/a> to U.S.-Israeli war against Iran.<\/p>\n

Compared to the most prominent Iran hawks, \u201cthe Iraq promoters were a tighter neoconservative core (AEI, Heritage, Hudson, CSP, PNAC, FDD) focused on regime change, WMD fears, and post-9\/11 opportunity,\u201d according to Grok. Those themes helped prepare the ground and effectively amplified the messaging coming out of the Bush White House and the Pentagon, particularly between Cheney\u2019s American Legion speech<\/a> in August 2002, in which he stressed the (non-existent) nuclear threat posed by Saddam Hussein, and the March 2003 invasion.<\/p>\n

By 2005, it had become abundantly clear that the invasion had turned into a quagmire, and the neoconservative hawks within the administration, including Wolfowitz and his undersecretary of defense for policy and Perle protege Douglas Feith<\/a> were effectively purged, joining Cheney\u2019s national security adviser, Scooter Libby<\/a>, on the outside. (Both Feith and Libby retreated to Hudson.) PNAC dissolved itself early in 2006, while Rumsfeld was gone by the end of that year. <\/p>\n

In May 2007, FDD hosted an all-expenses paid weekend workshop<\/a> at the Our Lacaya Resort in Freeport, Bahamas, attended by more than two dozen mainly neoconservative luminaries from various think tanks and media entitled \u201cConfronting the Iranian Threat: The Way Forward.\u201d Soon after, two Perle proteges, Reuel Marc Gerecht<\/a> and the late Michael Ledeen<\/a> \u2013 both fixtures at AEI\u2019s standing-room-only \u201cblack coffee briefings,\u201d<\/a> in the run-up to the Iraq invasion \u2013 moved to FDD, which, according to Claude, has become \u201ceffectively the successor-vehicle for the Iraq War neoconservative network, rebranded and refocused on Iran.\u201d Grok noted, however, that FDD \u201chas since scrubbed some pre-[Iraq] war content, but archives confirm its role in the echo chamber.\u201d The torch had passed.<\/p>\n

But \u201c(t)he personnel and ideological continuity (revolving doors to government, threat inflation, media amplification) is striking,\u201d according to Grok. \u201c(T)he same networks drove both campaigns two decades apart.\u201d <\/p>\n

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