The Israel Lobby’s Responsibility for the Iran War

News flash: The war in Iran is not going as expected. I could say not going as “planned,” except that word seems completely inappropriate in this case. As Americans and others experience yet another Middle East debacle, they want to know who is responsible. It is vitally important to place blame where it belongs, but equally important that those who are not responsible not be wrongly accused.

Not surprisingly, some observers think this is a war being fought on Israel’s behalf. As evidence, they point to U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s statement that the administration knew Israel was going to attack, anticipated that Iran might retaliate against U.S. forces in the region, and therefore chose to preempt. Furthermore, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had been pushing hard for another war for months, and there are plenty of pro-Israel pundits—like former Jerusalem Post editor in chief and current New York Times columnist Bret Stephens—who have repeatedly called for war on Iran in the past and are defending the current war even now.

This raises an obvious question: To what extent does the “Israel lobby” here in the United States also bear some responsibility for the war? Before I consider that question in detail, however, two notes of caution are in order.

First, it is still early days, and more evidence for how and why this happened is bound to come to light in the months ahead, along with the usual efforts to kick up dust and shift the blame if things go further south. Unlike the 2003 war in Iraq, this conflict was not preceded by a long campaign to sell the war to the American people, so it’s harder to know exactly who was pushing for it and who was raising doubts.

Second, in trying to gauge the impact of any lobbying effort, it is essential to define it properly. As John Mearsheimer and I made clear in our 2007 book on this topic, the Israel lobby is not defined by religion or ethnicity, but rather by the political positions its members try to advance. It is a loose coalition of groups and individuals whose common aim is maintaining a “special relationship” between the United States and Israel. In practice, this special relationship means providing Israel with generous military and diplomatic support no matter what it does. The lobby is comprised of both Jews and gentiles, and many American Jews are not part of the Israel lobby and do not support the special relationship. Moreover, some key parts of the lobby (such as Christian Zionists) are not Jewish.

It would therefore be both analytically wrong and dangerously divisive to blame the American Jewish community for the war, just as it was wrong to blame that community for the 2003 war in Iraq. Indeed, back in 2002-03, surveys showed that Jewish Americans were less supportive of going to war against Iraqi President Saddam Hussein than the American population as a whole. Although Israel’s Jewish People Policy Institute (JPPI) recently released a poll purporting to show that a majority of Jewish Americans supports the current war against Iran, these results are from a carefully selected and decidedly unrepresentative group of respondents and are almost certainly bogus. (As a side note, it’s irresponsible for JPPI to release such dubious findings, as it risks fueling precisely the sort of antisemitism that all of us want to prevent.) It is also worth noting that J Street, the largest mainstream liberal pro-Israel group, and progressive groups like New Jewish Narrative and Jewish Voice for Peace have already issued public statements condemning the war.

So who is responsible?

First and most obviously, President Donald Trump, and his collection of feckless and incompetent loyalists. Like George W. Bush in 2003, he made the decision, and he bears the ultimate responsibility for the consequences. And, of course, Netanyahu, who is trying to establish Israeli hegemony over the entire region but has no chance of doing so without active U.S. support, bears direct responsibility as well.

But no president acts entirely alone—whatever Trump wants us to believe—and it is well established that Trump can be swayed by what he hears from those around him. And Trump’s inner circle includes many people who are staunch defenders of Israel, longtime beneficiaries of Israel-related campaign contributions, or both. Trump’s two Middle East envoys—Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner—are both ardent supporters of Israel, as is U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee. Rubio, who also serves as national security advisor, was a reflexive proponent of the special relationship during his Senate career and one of the biggest recipients of pro-Israel campaign funding. Current White House chief of staff Susie Wiles worked as a consultant for Netanyahu’s 2020 reelection campaign. Except for Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who questioned excessive U.S. support for Israel in her pre-MAGA career, it is hard to think of anyone in the upper reaches of the administration who publicly favors distancing the United States from Israel.

Second, Trump himself has acknowledged his own debt to ardent pro-Israel figures such as the late Sheldon Adelson and his widow, Miriam. As Eli Clifton and Ian Lustick recount in a recent article in the Nation (and a soon-to-be-published book), Trump singled out Miriam Adelson—the largest single contributor in recent U.S. elections—during his address to the Knesset in October 2025, and even speculated that she might love Israel more than the United States. Similar concerns may also explain why some Democratic Party leaders have been reluctant to criticize Israel for starting the war or the Trump administration for joining in and have focused instead on the failure to plan the war more carefully.

Third, this war did not come out of nowhere. To be sure, the United States and Iran have been at odds for decades, and neither Israel nor the lobby is solely responsible for the suspicion with which each country views the other. Nonetheless, lobby groups such as AIPAC, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, the Zionist Organization of America, and United Against Nuclear Iran have worked to demonize Iran over the years, prevent U.S. companies from doing business there, and derail prior attempts by former Iranian presidents Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Mohammed Khatami to improve relations. (For evidence on the latter point, check out chapter 10 of our 2007 book.) Unlike J Street, these groups worked overtime to thwart the 2015 agreement that reduced Iran’s enrichment capacity and nuclear stockpile, and they eventually persuaded Trump to tear up the deal in 2018 even though Iran was in full compliance. Had Trump not done so, of course, there would be much less reason to worry about Iran’s nuclear program today.

Finally, by making it almost impossible for either Democratic or Republican presidents to put meaningful pressure on Israel, the lobby has enabled Netanyahu to engage in “reckless driving” all over the region, whether in Israel’s sustained efforts to oppress its Palestinian subjects or in its repeated attacks on Gaza, Lebanon, Yemen, Syria, Iran, and even Qatar. Although Steven Simon is correct to say that Israel did not “compel” the U.S. into this latest war—the Trump administration jumped in voluntarily and enthusiastically—the lobby’s role in defending the special relationship and enabling Israel to keep disturbing the peace helps us understand why Americans keep finding themselves embroiled in costly conflicts far from home.

The bottom line: As this latest disaster unfolds, Americans and others will rightly want to hold those responsible to account. They should focus on the specific groups and individuals—from the president on down—who embraced Israel’s approach to the region and managed to convince themselves that yet another orgy of violence would be in the U.S. interest. Until the lobby’s influence is reduced and the United States establishes a more normal relationship with Israel, such episodes are likely to be repeated, making the United States look like a heartless bully and leaving all of us worse off.