Last week, the White House’s official rapid response account on X posted a graphic from a pro-Israel think tank, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), alongside text falsely claiming that Tehran’s uranium enrichment accelerated due to the loosening of sanctions under former United States President Joe Biden.Iran’s uranium enrichment was capped at 3.67 percent under the 2015 nuclear deal signed under President Barack Obama, far below the 90 percent required to make weapons. Tehran accelerated the enrichment only after President Donald Trump withdrew from the landmark deal in 2018.Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of listIt shows how the FDD’s talking points on the US-Israel war on Iran are being picked up by the Trump administration.The organisation, which had fiercely opposed the 2015 nuclear deal, occupies a carefully cultivated position in the corridors of power in Washington, DC.Its experts appear across major US news networks, often introduced as nonpartisan analysts. Its reports circulate through the US Congress and White House. Its website prominently states that it accepts no funding from foreign governments. And its name itself – invoking the defence of democracy – lends it an air of institutional legitimacy few politicians publicly challenge.But behind that image sits a network of former Israeli military and intelligence officials who have spent years pushing the US towards confrontation with Iran.Now, a former senior official from FDD Action, the organisation’s lobbying arm, has joined Trump’s Iran negotiating te …
