David Wurmser (born in Switzerland) is an American foreign policy specialist. He served as

Middle East The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Province), East Thrace (Europ ...

Adviser to former US Vice President Dick Cheney, 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 Stat ...

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 Washington, D.C.–based think tank that researches government, politics, economics, and social welfare. A ...

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

Professional Background

Wurmser has a

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

international relations International relations (IR), sometimes referred to as international studies and international affairs, is the scientific study of interactions between sovereign states. In a broader sense, it concerns all activities between states—such a ...

from

Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hemisphere. It consi ...

. In 2008, Wurmser was listed as a member of the board of advisors of the

Endowment for Middle East Truth Endowment for Middle East Truth (EMET) is a Washington, DC-based think tank and policy center with a pro-Israel stance that works to promote their views in media coverage of the Arab–Israeli conflict in the Middle East History The organization ...

, 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 (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

i Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. This advocated pre-emptive strikes against

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

and Syria, the removal of

Saddam Hussein Saddam Hussein ( ; ar, صدام حسين, Ṣaddām Ḥusayn; 28 April 1937 – 30 December 2006) was an Iraqi politician who served as the fifth president of Iraq from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003. A leading member of the revolutio ...

from

Iraq Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to the north, Iran to the east, the Persian Gulf and K ...

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 Syria was developing "

weapons of mass destruction A weapon of mass destruction (WMD) is a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, or any other weapon that can kill and bring significant harm to numerous individuals or cause great damage to artificial structures (e.g., buildings), natu ...

".The assassination of Rafiq Hariri: who benefited?
by Bill Van Auken, World Socialist Web Site, February 17, 2005 After the September 11, 2001 attacks, Undersecretary of Defense

Douglas Feith Douglas Jay Feith (born July 16, 1953) served as the under secretary of Defense for Policy for United States president George W. Bush, from July 2001 until August 2005. He is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, a conservative think tank. ...

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

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

Latin America Latin America or * french: Amérique Latine, link=no * ht, Amerik Latin, link=no * pt, América Latina, link=no, name=a, sometimes referred to as LatAm is a large cultural region in the Americas where Romance languages — languages derived f ...

and

Southeast Asia Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical south-eastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of mainlan ...

were portrayed as a way to catch

terrorist Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of criminal violence to provoke a state of terror or fear, mostly with the intention to achieve political or religious aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violen ...

s off guard when they were expecting an assault on

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...

.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 The war on terror, officially the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT), is an ongoing international counterterrorism military campaign initiated by the United States following the September 11 attacks. The main targets of the campaign are militant ...

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'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

'' reported that

FBI The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice, t ...

counterintelligence Counterintelligence is an activity aimed at protecting an agency's intelligence program from an opposition's intelligence service. It includes gathering information and conducting activities to prevent espionage, sabotage, assassinations or ...

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 former dean of Johns Hopkins ...

about the passing of classified information to

Ahmad Chalabi Ahmed Abdel Hadi Chalabi ( ar, أحمد عبد الهادي الجلبي; 30 October 1945 – 3 November 2015) was an Iraqi politician, a founder of the Iraqi National Congress (INC) who served as the President of the Governing Council of ...

and/or the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.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 Meyrav Wurmser is an Israeli-American neoconservative political executive. Biography Meyrav Wurmser wrote her Ph.D. thesis on Revisionist Zionism behind the Herut and Likud parties, and received her doctorate in political science at George Washi ...

, co-founded the

Middle East Media Research Institute The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI; officially the "Middle East Media and Research Institute") is a nonprofit press monitoring and analysis organization co-founded by former Israeli military intelligence officer Yigal Carmon and ...

(MEMRI). Wurmser lives in Rockville, Maryland. 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 Swiss Jews Swiss emigrants to the United States United States Department of State officials Johns Hopkins University alumni