Final week, the White Home’s official speedy response account on X posted a graphic from a pro-Israel suppose tank, the Basis for Protection of Democracies (FDD), alongside textual content falsely claiming that Tehran’s uranium enrichment accelerated because of the loosening of sanctions underneath former United States President Joe Biden.
Iran’s uranium enrichment was capped at 3.67 p.c underneath the 2015 nuclear deal signed underneath President Barack Obama, far beneath the 90 p.c required to make weapons. Tehran accelerated the enrichment solely after President Donald Trump withdrew from the landmark deal in 2018.
Really helpful Tales
checklist of 4 gadgetsfinish of checklist
It exhibits how the FDD’s speaking factors on the US-Israel warfare on Iran are being picked up by the Trump administration.
The organisation, which had fiercely opposed the 2015 nuclear deal, occupies a rigorously cultivated place within the corridors of energy in Washington, DC.
Its consultants seem throughout main US information networks, usually launched as nonpartisan analysts. Its studies flow into via the US Congress and White Home. Its web site prominently states that it accepts no funding from overseas governments. And its identify itself – invoking the defence of democracy – lends it an air of institutional legitimacy few politicians publicly problem.
However behind that picture sits a community of former Israeli navy and intelligence officers who’ve spent years pushing the US in direction of confrontation with Iran.
Now, a former senior official from FDD Motion, the organisation’s lobbying arm, has joined Trump’s Iran negotiating team. On Saturday, Trump appointed Nick Stewart to the Workplace of the Particular Envoy for Peace Missions, reportedly including him to the US negotiating group partaking with Iran alongside envoy Steve Witkoff.
Stewart is just not a profession diplomat. He served as managing director of advocacy at FDD Motion, the place he has publicly argued for a extra aggressive posture in direction of Iran, together with military pressure. He additionally served on the Division of State within the first Trump administration.
Federal lobbying disclosures present FDD Motion spent $150,000 lobbying the US authorities within the first quarter of 2025 on points together with Iran sanctions laws, US arms gross sales to Israel and the United States-Israel Protection Partnership Act of 2025.
In response to its web site, FDD Motion presents lawmakers and officers “direct help together with legislative drafting help, personal briefings, coverage evaluation, and coaching, all without charge”.
“Our aim is straightforward,” it states, “to make sure that these answerable for America’s nationwide safety have the experience and instruments they should succeed.”
The appointment of a senior determine who beforehand labored for a lobbying group advocating a tougher line on Iran has raised questions on Washington’s means to pursue negotiations independently, notably as pro-Israel advocacy networks acquire growing affect inside Trump’s overseas coverage circle.
What’s the FDD?
The FDD’s origins return to 2001. In response to the Carnegie Endowment, three main pro-Israel donors included an organisation referred to as EMET, Hebrew for “reality”, shortly after the beginning of the second Palestinian Intifada, a mass rebellion towards the Israeli occupation. The phrase “intifada”, which implies “shaking off” in Arabic, has been thought of provocative in a number of Western nations, together with the US.
In an software for tax-exempt standing filed with the US Inside Income Service, one of many founders reportedly wrote that the organisation aimed “to offer training to boost Israel’s picture in North America and the general public’s understanding of points affecting Israeli-Arab relations”, the Carnegie Endowment reported.
After the September 11, 2001, assaults on the US, EMET modified its identify to the FDD, and over the following twenty years, Iran turned central to the organisation’s work.
In congressional testimony throughout debates over the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, formally referred to as the Joint Complete Plan of Motion (JCPOA), FDD Chief Government Mark Dubowitz pushed for expanded sanctions focusing on entities linked to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), stricter enforcement measures and limits on sanctions aid.
Across the identical interval, the Carnegie Endowment for Worldwide Peace described the FDD as supplying the “mental firepower” behind pro-Israel advocacy efforts in Washington.
Whereas the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) – a pro-Israel lobbying and election campaign-financing group thought of one of the vital influential lobbying organisations within the US – had “entry to monetary contributors”, Carnegie wrote in 2011, the FDD supplied “crisp speaking factors” delivered by “credible consultants” via “congressional hearings, on opinion pages, and on TV and radio”.
Over time, the FDD has helped form the best way Israeli safety positions enter the US political mainstream, repackaged via coverage papers, congressional testimony, sanctions proposals and tv appearances earlier than usually resurfacing in Washington policymaking itself.
“No organisation has been higher at offering this sort of mental firepower than the little-known Basis for Protection of Democracies,” the report added.
Trump first presidency and his Iran coverage
Throughout Trump’s first presidential time period from 2017 to 2021, most of the positions lengthy advocated by the FDD had been mirrored in US coverage, notably after Trump withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal and launched his “most strain” sanctions marketing campaign towards Tehran.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had vehemently opposed the nuclear deal, which had put limits on Iran’s nuclear programme in return for sanctions aid.
FDD itself later stated that senior adviser Richard Goldberg, whereas serving on Trump’s Nationwide Safety Council, helped coordinate key components of the “most strain” marketing campaign – a sweeping technique of sanctions and financial isolation geared toward crippling Iran’s financial system and weaking its authorities.
In response to his biography on the FDD’s web site, Goldberg labored on congressional sanctions efforts focusing on Iran and performed a job in increasing US missile defence cooperation with Israel.
Questions surrounding the FDD’s relationship with Israel have intensified after media reporting concerning the Israeli foyer within the US.
The FDD has rejected accusations that it acts on behalf of a overseas authorities. Al Jazeera contacted the FDD for remark however acquired no response by the point of publication.
Nonetheless, the organisation’s personal Israel programme outlines positions that intently mirror the Israeli authorities’s regional worldview.
“Israel is America’s most respected, dependable, and susceptible ally within the Center East,” the programme states on the FDD’s website.
It argues that “the overwhelming majority of Israel’s enemies are America’s enemies”, notably Iran and its allied armed teams throughout the area that Tehran calls the “axis of resistance”.
The programme additionally characterises Qatar and Turkiye as “Muslim Brotherhood-aligned nations” advancing “an anti-Israel agenda whereas waging a potent affect marketing campaign in Western capitals”.
Elsewhere, the FDD states that its aim is to “develop coverage choices that tackle the threats going through Israel”.
Earlier reporting by Slate and the Carnegie Endowment for Worldwide Peace additionally documented FDD-sponsored journeys to Israel for American lecturers, which critics argued promote a largely right-wing Israeli safety perspective much like excursions organised by different pro-Israel advocacy teams.
Former Israeli safety officers on the FDD
Contained in the FDD’s suppose tank arm is a dense community of former Israeli navy and intelligence officers, a lot of whom have spent years advocating for aggressive sanctions on Iran, nearer US-Israeli strategic alignment and navy confrontation with Tehran.
Jacob Nagel, a senior fellow on the FDD, served for many years in Israel’s navy, the Ministry of Defence and Prime Minister’s Workplace. From 2016 to 2017, he served because the appearing head of Israel’s Nationwide Safety Council and Netanyahu’s nationwide safety adviser.
Nagel additionally led Israel’s group concerned in negotiations surrounding the Iran nuclear deal and beforehand served in Unit 8200, Israel’s alerts intelligence division, which has confronted criticism over its surveillance of Palestinians.
Eyal Hulata, one other senior worldwide fellow on the FDD, served as Israel’s nationwide safety adviser from 2021 to 2023 after an extended profession in Israel’s intelligence neighborhood.
In response to his biography, Hulata coordinated Israel’s nationwide technique on Iran whereas in workplace.
Different fellows embrace Jonathan Conricus, a former worldwide spokesperson for the Israeli navy who spent years serving as a fight commander in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, and Tal Kelman, a retired Israeli major-general who beforehand headed strategic planning for the Israeli air power.
The presence of a number of former senior Israeli safety officers inside an organisation that presents itself in US media as an impartial US suppose tank has fuelled scrutiny over the FDD’s declare to political neutrality.
Trump-era affect
The FDD’s ties to Trump-era overseas coverage circles lengthen properly past Stewart. Retired Lieutenant General HR McMaster, Trump’s former nationwide safety adviser, now chairs the FDD’s Heart on Army and Political Energy.
Matt Pottinger, who served as Trump’s deputy nationwide safety adviser, can also be affiliated with the organisation, alongside a number of former administration officers concerned in Iran coverage.
Goldberg, one of many FDD’s most distinguished figures, beforehand served on Trump’s Nationwide Safety Council overseeing efforts focusing on Iranian weapons programmes. Talking just lately on a podcast with Goldberg, Dubowitz described confronting Iran as a private mission.
“If me, I stay and breathe one mission: stopping a nuclear Iran and ending the Islamic Republic,” he stated.
The FDD CEO added that Iranian officers accuse the suppose tank of being “the designing and executing arm of the US administration on Iran coverage”.
“Responsible as charged,” he responded.
The feedback mirrored the more and more blurred strains between suppose tank advocacy, lobbying and policymaking which have outlined the FDD’s rise in Washington.
Scrutiny of these intersections has intensified as talks between Washington and Tehran have stalled. On Wednesday, Trump stated negotiations have progressed, elevating hopes of an finish to the warfare and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. Iran’s important closure of the waterway has triggered a worldwide vitality disaster.
In 2019, Iran sanctioned the FDD and Dubowitz, accusing the organisation of serving to wage “financial terrorism” via sanctions focusing on Tehran.
Stewart, who left the FDD to affix Trump’s Iran negotiating group, has publicly dismissed the concept Iran’s management might negotiate in good religion.
Talking at a Washington, DC, panel hosted by the hawkish Vandenberg Coalition in October 2024, Stewart stated “it’s necessary that we disabuse individuals of that notion” that figures inside Iran’s authorities might function “trustworthy brokers”.
He argued that even Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian shouldn’t be seen as a reformer as a result of he remained “part of the theocratic, tyrannical, authoritarian authorities of Iran”.
“We shouldn’t purchase into that narrative,” Stewart stated, “as a result of what it does is it throws us off our guard.”
The panel additionally featured Elliott Abrams, the previous US particular consultant for Iran; Cameron Khansarinia, linked to exiled opposition determine Reza Pahlavi, son of Iran’s late shah; and Behnam Ben Taleblu, an Iran specialist on the FDD.
Weeks earlier than Israeli and US strikes on Iran started on February 28, Stewart publicly argued that Washington ought to capitalise on what he described as tactical victories towards Tehran.
“For too lengthy, American presidents have drawn crimson strains solely to look at adversaries cross with out consequence,” Stewart wrote in January.
“The Trump administration has notched tactical win after tactical win towards Iran: killing [Iranian General and elite Quds Force commander] Qasem Soleimani in 2020, imposing crippling sanctions on the regime, degrading its terror proxy community, and placing on the coronary heart of its nuclear infrastructure.”
“However with out follow-through, these tactical wins danger being misplaced to time,” he added.
“The duty for the US now could be to leverage these victories right into a decisive strategic end result. If there was ever a second to press the benefit, that is it.”
