David Wurmser is an American foreign policy specialist. He served as

Middle East The Middle East (term originally coined in English language) is a geopolitical region encompassing the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, Turkey, Egypt, Iran, and Iraq. The term came into widespread usage by the United Kingdom and western Eur ...

Adviser to former US Vice President

Dick Cheney Richard Bruce Cheney ( ; born January 30, 1941) is an American former politician and businessman who served as the 46th vice president of the United States from 2001 to 2009 under President George W. Bush. He has been called vice presidency o ...

, as special assistant to

John R. Bolton John Robert Bolton (born November 20, 1948) is an American attorney, diplomat, Republican consultant, and political commentator. He served as the 25th United States ambassador to the United Nations from 2005 to 2006, and as the 26th United Sta ...

at the State Department and as a research fellow on the

at the

American Enterprise Institute The American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, known simply as the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), is a center-right think tank based in Washington, D.C., that researches government, politics, economics, and social welfare ...

(AEI). He served in the U.S. Navy Reserve as an intelligence officer at the rank of Lieutenant Commander.

Professional background

Wurmser was born in Switzerland. He has a Ph.D. in

international relations International relations (IR, and also referred to as international studies, international politics, or international affairs) is an academic discipline. In a broader sense, the study of IR, in addition to multilateral relations, concerns al ...

from

Johns Hopkins University The Johns Hopkins University (often abbreviated as Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. Founded in 1876 based on the European research institution model, J ...

. In 2008, Wurmser was listed as a member of the board of advisors of the Endowment for Middle East Truth, a group which was involved in the distribution of over 20 million DVDs of the film '' Obsession'' in swing states prior to the 2008 US presidential election. Wurmser is the founder of the Delphi Global Analysis Group.

Writings

Wurmser has been credited as being one of the main authors of the 1996 report '' A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm'', a paper prepared for incoming

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

i Prime Minister

Binyamin Netanyahu Benjamin Netanyahu (born 21 October 1949) is an Israeli politician who has served as the prime minister of Israel since 2022, having previously held the office from 1996 to 1999 and from 2009 to 2021. Netanyahu is the longest-serving prime min ...

. This advocated pre-emptive strikes against

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the nort ...

and

Syria Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to Syria–Turkey border, the north, Iraq to Iraq–Syria border, t ...

, the removal of

Saddam Hussein Saddam Hussein (28 April 1937 – 30 December 2006) was an Iraqi politician and revolutionary who served as the fifth president of Iraq from 1979 until Saddam Hussein statue destruction, his overthrow in 2003 during the 2003 invasion of Ira ...

from

Iraq Iraq, officially the Republic of Iraq, is a country in West Asia. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to Iraq–Saudi Arabia border, the south, Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq border, the east, the Persian Gulf and ...

and the abandonment of traditional "land for peace" negotiations with Palestinians.''Daily Telegraph'', London, 5 October 2007. In 1999, Wurmser wrote ''Tyranny's Ally: America's Failure to Defeat Saddam Hussein'' (published by AEI Press), which argued that President Clinton's policies in Iraq were failing to contain the country. In 2000, Wurmser helped draft a document entitled "Ending Syria's Occupation of Lebanon: The US Role?", which called for a confrontation with the regime in Damascus. The document said that

was developing "

weapons of mass destruction A weapon of mass destruction (WMD) is a Biological agent, biological, chemical weapon, chemical, Radiological weapon, radiological, nuclear weapon, nuclear, or any other weapon that can kill or significantly harm many people or cause great dam ...

".The assassination of Rafiq Hariri: who benefited?
by Bill Van Auken, World Socialist Web Site, February 17, 2005 After the

attacks of September 11, 2001 The September 11 attacks, also known as 9/11, were four coordinated Islamist terrorist suicide attacks by al-Qaeda against the United States in 2001. Nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners, crashing the first two into ...

, Undersecretary of Defense

Douglas Feith Douglas Jay Feith (; born July 16, 1953) is an American lawyer who served as Under Secretary of Defense for Policy from July 2001 until August 2005. He is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, a conservative think tank. Feith has been descri ...

appointed Wurmser and veteran defense analyst Michael Maloof as a two-man

Pentagon In geometry, a pentagon () is any five-sided polygon or 5-gon. The sum of the internal angles in a simple polygon, simple pentagon is 540°. A pentagon may be simple or list of self-intersecting polygons, self-intersecting. A self-intersecting ...

intelligence unit. One of their products, days after the attacks, was a memo that suggested "hitting targets outside the Middle East in the initial offensive" or a "non-

Al Qaeda , image = Flag of Jihad.svg , caption = Jihadist flag, Flag used by various al-Qaeda factions , founder = Osama bin Laden{{Assassinated, Killing of Osama bin Laden , leaders = {{Plainlist, * Osama bin Lad ...

target like

." In the memo, U.S. attacks in

Latin America Latin America is the cultural region of the Americas where Romance languages are predominantly spoken, primarily Spanish language, Spanish and Portuguese language, Portuguese. Latin America is defined according to cultural identity, not geogr ...

and

Southeast Asia Southeast Asia is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, southeastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of China, east of the Indian subcontinent, and northwest of the Mainland Au ...

were portrayed as a way to catch

terrorist Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of violence against non-combatants to achieve political or ideological aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violence during peacetime or in the context of war aga ...

s off guard when they were expecting an assault on

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. It is bordered by Pakistan to the Durand Line, east and south, Iran to the Afghanistan–Iran borde ...

.Mark Hosenball and Michael Isikoff
"Secret Proposals: Fighting Terror by Attacking ... South America?"
''Newsweek'', August 9, 2004 Wurmser and Maloof arguably contributed to the war on terror by sifting through top secret daily intelligence documents for a link between Al Qaeda and Iraqi government leadership.Wedel, Janine R. 2009. ''Shadow Elite: How the World's New Power Brokers Undermine Democracy, Government, and the Free Market''. Basic Books. Maloof and Wurmser gave their findings to the Bush administration, which used them to claim that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and ties to terrorism. Neither claim has shown to be true, per the

Senate Report on Pre-war Intelligence on Iraq The Senate Report on Iraqi WMD Intelligence (formally, the Report of the Select Committee on Intelligence on the U.S. Intelligence Community's Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq) was the report by the United States Senate Select Committee on ...

. On September 4, 2004, ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...

'' reported that

FBI The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and Federal law enforcement in the United States, its principal federal law enforcement ag ...

counterintelligence Counterintelligence (counter-intelligence) or counterespionage (counter-espionage) is any activity aimed at protecting an agency's Intelligence agency, intelligence program from an opposition's intelligence service. It includes gathering informati ...

investigators had questioned Wurmser, along with Feith, Harold Rhode, and

Paul Wolfowitz Paul Dundes Wolfowitz (born December 22, 1943) is an American political scientist and diplomat who served as the 10th President of the World Bank, U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense, U.S. Ambassador to Indonesia, and dean of Paul H. Nitze Scho ...

about the passing of classified information to Ahmad Chalabi and/or the

American Israel Public Affairs Committee The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC ) is a pro-Israel lobbying group that advocates its policies to the legislative and executive branches of the United States. It is one of several pro-Israel lobbying organizations in the ...

.Leak Inquiry Includes Iran Experts in Administration
by Robin Wright and Dan Eggen, ''The Washington Post'', September 4, 2004 In September 2007, ''Newsweek'' and Reuters reported that "David Wurmser told a small group several months ago that Vice President Dick Cheney was considering asking Israel to strike the Iranian nuclear site at Natanz."Cheney mulled Israeli strike on Iran: Newsweek
euters September 23, 2007 Meyrav Wurmser, Wurmser's wife, "told Newsweek the claims were untrue."

Personal life

Wurmser's wife, Dr. Meyrav Wurmser, co-founded the

Middle East Media Research Institute The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), officially the Middle East Media and Research Institute, is an American non-profit press monitoring organization co-founded by Israeli ex-intelligence officer Yigal Carmon and Israeli-American ...

(MEMRI). From 2004 to 2005 he wrote a public blog.http://dual-loyalties.blogspot.com/

References

External links

Coping with Crumbling States: A Western and Israeli Balance-of-Power Strategy for the Levant
by David Wurmser
Key Architect of 2003 Iraq War Is Now a Key Architect of Trump Iran Policy
by Jon Schwarz {{DEFAULTSORT:Wurmser, David Year of birth missing (living people) Living people American people of Swiss-Jewish descent 21st-century Swiss Jews Swiss emigrants to the United States United States Department of State officials Johns Hopkins University alumni