Back in 1996, a group of Americans writing for an Israeli think tank published a paper for Israeli Likud Party leader Benjamin Netanyahu called “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm.” In addition to calling for Saddam Hussein’s replacement, it also advised an overthrow or destabilization of the governments of Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Iran, thus leading to something akin to a “Greater US-Israel Co-Prosperity Sphere.”
One year later came the formation of The Project for the New American Century (PNAC), a neocon think tank based in Washington. William Kristol and Robert Kagan co-founded it as a non-profit educational organization, but many have accused it of playing a primary role in the Bush Administration’s decision to go to war with Iraq in 2003. Later, the Pentagon hosted a unit called the Office of Special Plans (OSP), where Paul Wolfowitz joined Douglas Feith in propagating what many have claimed were false allegations about Hussein’s possession of weapons of mass destruction.