In September 2012, Patrick Clawson, a prominent figure at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, suggested that the US should provoke Iran into taking the first action to start a war. Clawson’s comments were made during a forum at the Washington Institute, where he heads the Iran Strategy Center. He openly discussed the idea of using a false flag operation to initiate military action against Iran, arguing that if Iran refused to compromise, it would be beneficial for another party to start the conflict.
It was part of a presentation given with Dennis Ross and David Makovsky at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy entitled How to Build U.S.-Israeli Coordination on Preventing an Iranian Nuclear Breakout.
“One can combine other means of pressure with sanctions. I mentioned that explosion on August 17th. We could step up the pressure. I mean look people, Iranian submarines periodically go down, some day one of them might not come up, who would know why? We can do a variety of things if we wish to increase the pressure… We are in the game of using covert means against the Iranians. We could get nastier.”
