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Inside the Iran War Industry

Using an old playbook with powerful new tools, it may be closer than ever to turning a US–Iran war into reality.

As President Trump continues assembling an “armada” in the Middle East, decades of political efforts to maneuver the United States into war with Iran may finally be coming to fruition. Yet rather than delivering “help” to Iranians in the form of American bombs—and pulling the US into a potentially open-ended conflict that many experts say would make the invasion of Iraq look like a cakewalk—Trump has, for now, pivoted to negotiations. While the possibility of an agreement remains a long shot, the Iran war industry is pulling out all the stops to ensure its long-sought window for another regime-change war does not close.

US policy on Iran is one of the most aggressively one-sided political contests in Washington. The sprawling ecosystem pushing for war includes foreign leaders like Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who rushed to Washington this past week to run interference as US talks with Iran showed signs of promise. It also includes the lobbying power of groups like AIPAC and their affiliated dark-money political operations like Democratic Majority for Israel and United Democracy Project. And it includes think tanks like the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, which frequently dominate the roster of expert witnesses invited to testify at Iran-related congressional hearings.

Campaigns for regime-change wars often follow a familiar playbook, and there is no shortage of actors vying to play the role of Ahmad Chalabi, who fed the George W. Bush administration false intelligence and promises that the United States could create democracy on the cheap to justify the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Today, the leading candidate may be the........

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