What is the FDD, the pro-Israel think tank shaping Trump’s Iran policy?

According to its website, FDD Action offers lawmakers and officials “direct support including legislative drafting assistance, private briefings, policy analysis, and training, all at no cost”.

“Our goal is simple,” it states, “to ensure that those responsible for America’s national security have the expertise and tools they need to succeed.”

The appointment of a senior figure who previously worked for a lobbying group advocating a harder line on Iran has raised questions about Washington’s ability to pursue negotiations independently, particularly as pro-Israel advocacy networks gain increasing influence inside Trump’s foreign policy circle.

What is the FDD?

The FDD’s origins go back to 2001. According to the Carnegie Endowment, three major pro-Israel donors incorporated an organisation called EMET, Hebrew for “truth”, shortly after the start of the second Palestinian Intifada, a mass uprising against the Israeli occupation. The word “intifada”, which means “shaking off” in Arabic, has been considered provocative in several Western countries, including the US.

In an application for tax-exempt status filed with the US Internal Revenue Service, one of the founders reportedly wrote that the organisation aimed “to provide education to enhance Israel’s image in North America and the public’s understanding of issues affecting Israeli-Arab relations”, the Carnegie Endowment reported.

After the September 11, 2001, attacks on the US, EMET changed its name to the FDD, and over the next two decades, Iran became central to the organisation’s work.

In congressional testimony during debates over the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), FDD Chief Executive Mark Dubowitz pushed for expanded sanctions targeting entities linked to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), stricter enforcement measures and limits on sanctions relief.

Around the same period, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace described the FDD as supplying the “intellectual firepower” behind pro-Israel advocacy efforts in Washington.

While the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) – a pro-Israel lobbying and election campaign-financing group considered one of the most influential lobbying organisations in the US – had “access to financial contributors”, Carnegie wrote in 2011, the FDD provided “crisp talking points” delivered by “credible experts” through “congressional hearings, on opinion pages, and on TV and radio”.

Over time, the FDD has helped shape the way Israeli security positions enter the US political mainstream, repackaged through policy papers, congressional testimony, sanctions proposals and television appearances before often resurfacing in Washington policymaking itself.

“No organisation has been better at providing this kind of intellectual firepower than the little-known Foundation for Defense of Democracies,” the report added.

Trump first presidency and his Iran policy

During Trump’s first presidential term from 2017 to 2021, many of the positions long advocated by the FDD were reflected in US policy, particularly after Trump withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal and launched his “maximum pressure” sanctions campaign against 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 relief.

FDD itself later said that senior adviser Richard Goldberg, while serving on Trump’s National Security Council, helped coordinate key elements of the “maximum pressure” campaign – a sweeping strategy of sanctions and economic isolation aimed at crippling Iran’s economy and weaking its government.

According to his biography on the FDD’s website, Goldberg worked on congressional sanctions efforts targeting Iran and played a role in expanding US missile defence cooperation with Israel.

Questions surrounding the FDD’s relationship with Israel have intensified after media reporting about the Israeli lobby in the US.

The FDD has rejected accusations that it acts on behalf of a foreign government. Al Jazeera contacted the FDD for comment but received no response by the time of publication.

Still, the organisation’s own Israel programme outlines positions that closely mirror the Israeli government’s regional worldview.

“Israel is America’s most valuable, reliable, and vulnerable ally in the Middle East,” the programme states on the FDD’s website.

It argues that “the vast majority of Israel’s enemies are America’s enemies”, particularly Iran and its allied armed groups across the region that Tehran calls the “axis of resistance”.

The programme also characterises Qatar and Turkiye as “Muslim Brotherhood-aligned countries” advancing “an anti-Israel agenda while waging a potent influence campaign in Western capitals”.

Elsewhere, the FDD states that its goal is to “develop policy options that address the threats facing Israel”.

Previous reporting by Slate and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace also documented FDD-sponsored trips to Israel for American academics, which critics argued promote a largely right-wing Israeli security perspective similar to tours organised by other pro-Israel advocacy groups.

Former Israeli security officials at the FDD

Inside the FDD’s think tank arm is a dense network of former Israeli military and intelligence officials, many of whom have spent years advocating for aggressive sanctions on Iran, closer US-Israeli strategic alignment and military confrontation with Tehran.

Jacob Nagel, a senior fellow at the FDD, served for decades in Israel’s military, the Ministry of Defence and Prime Minister’s Office. From 2016 to 2017, he served as the acting head of Israel’s National Security Council and Netanyahu’s national security adviser.

Nagel also led Israel’s team involved in negotiations surrounding the Iran nuclear deal and previously served in Unit 8200, Israel’s signals intelligence division, which has faced criticism over its surveillance of Palestinians.

Eyal Hulata, another senior international fellow at the FDD, served as Israel’s national security adviser from 2021 to 2023 after a long career in Israel’s intelligence community.

According to his biography, Hulata coordinated Israel’s national strategy on Iran while in office.

Other fellows include Jonathan Conricus, a former international spokesperson for the Israeli military who spent years serving as a combat commander in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, and Tal Kelman, a retired Israeli major-general who previously headed strategic planning for the Israeli air force.

The presence of multiple former senior Israeli security officials inside an organisation that presents itself in US media as an independent US think tank has fuelled scrutiny over the FDD’s claim to political neutrality.

Trump-era influence

The FDD’s ties to Trump-era foreign policy circles extend well beyond Stewart. Retired Lieutenant General HR McMaster, Trump’s former national security adviser, now chairs the FDD’s Center on Military and Political Power.

Matt Pottinger, who served as Trump’s deputy national security adviser, is also affiliated with the organisation, alongside several former administration officials involved in Iran policy.

Goldberg, one of the FDD’s most prominent figures, previously served on Trump’s National Security Council overseeing efforts targeting Iranian weapons programmes. Speaking recently on a podcast with Goldberg, Dubowitz described confronting Iran as a personal mission.

“If you know me, you know I live and breathe one mission: stopping a nuclear Iran and ending the Islamic Republic,” he said.

The FDD CEO added that Iranian officials accuse the think tank of being “the designing and executing arm of the US administration on Iran policy”.

“Guilty as charged,” he responded.

The comments reflected the increasingly blurred lines between think tank advocacy, lobbying and policymaking that have defined the FDD’s rise in Washington.

Scrutiny of those intersections has intensified as talks between Washington and Tehran have stalled. On Wednesday, Trump said negotiations have progressed, raising hopes of an end to the war and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. Iran’s essential closure of the waterway has triggered a global energy crisis.

In 2019, Iran sanctioned the FDD and Dubowitz, accusing the organisation of helping wage “economic terrorism” through sanctions targeting Tehran.

Stewart, who left the FDD to join Trump’s Iran negotiating team, has publicly dismissed the idea that Iran’s leadership could negotiate in good faith.

Speaking at a Washington, DC, panel hosted by the hawkish Vandenberg Coalition in October 2024, Stewart said “it’s important that we disabuse people of that notion” that figures within Iran’s government could serve as “honest brokers”.

He argued that even Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian should not be viewed as a reformer because he remained “a part of the theocratic, tyrannical, authoritarian government of Iran”.

“We shouldn’t buy into that narrative,” Stewart said, “because what it does is it throws us off our guard.”

The panel also featured Elliott Abrams, the former US special representative for Iran; Cameron Khansarinia, linked to exiled opposition figure Reza Pahlavi, son of Iran’s late shah; and Behnam Ben Taleblu, an Iran specialist at the FDD.

Weeks before Israeli and US strikes on Iran began on February 28, Stewart publicly argued that Washington should capitalise on what he described as tactical victories against Tehran.

“For too long, American presidents have drawn red lines only to watch adversaries cross without consequence,” Stewart wrote in January.

“The Trump administration has notched tactical win after tactical win against Iran: killing [Iranian General and elite Quds Force commander] Qasem Soleimani in 2020, imposing crippling sanctions on the regime, degrading its terror proxy network, and striking at the heart of its nuclear infrastructure.”

“But without follow-through, these tactical wins risk being lost to time,” he added.

“The task for the US now is to leverage these victories into a decisive strategic outcome. If there was ever a moment to press the advantage, this is it.”