Editor’s note: As the United States attacks Iran, we are republishing our June 26, 2025, story on the dark money operatives pushing for regime change in the country.

As President Donald Trump draws the country into hostilities with Iran, shadowy conservative groups working to gut consumer protections, slash climate policy, roll back abortion rights, and push America to the far right have also been pouring millions into influential think tanks advocating for regime change in the country.

While overthrowing Iran’s government could risk prolonged instability and bloodshed in the region, the efforts could please the neoconservative billionaires and benefit the fossil fuel interests funneling dark money to the think tanks.

Donors Trust, a dark money group with deep ties to Supreme Court mastermind Leonard Leo, has donated more than $2.7 million to the far-right, anti-Muslim Center for Security Policy from 2020 to 2023. A significant portion of Leo’s dark money came from a record-breaking $1.6 billion donation from Barre Seid, a conservative, pro-Israel billionaire who reportedly helped fund the anti-Iran film Obsession: Radical Islam’s War With the West. 

During that same timeframe, the anti-Iran think tank Foundation for the Defense of Democracies received more than $1.6 million from the Sarah Scaife Foundation, one of the country’s most powerful conservative groups. The Sarah Scaife Foundation, a major donor to the authors of Project 2025 blueprint for remaking the government, is financed by the Mellon oil and banking fortune.

A more internationally engaged Iranian government free of U.S. sanctions could lead to increased development of the country’s vast oil reserves, but experts say an attempted regime change could lead to extensive violence and upheaval in the region.

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That hasn’t stopped these dark money-funded think tanks from rattling their sabers. The Foundation for the Defense of Democracies — which employs former Trump and George W. Bush Iran hawks and worked with Trump’s 2018 State Department on an “Iran disinformation” project — has advocated for the Iranian populace to “seize this moment” and overthrow the current government. 

And the Center for Security Policy — backed by weapons manufacturers including the maker of the “bunker buster” bombs Trump dropped on Iran’s nuclear facilities and founded by a Ronald Reagan staffer who pushed for a McCarthy-style investigation into supposed jihadi infiltration of the U.S. government — is also cheering on the hostilities. In recent news broadcasts and essays, think tank staffers have alleged that Iran has coordinated with Mexican cartels to “conduct attacks on U.S. soil” and has ballistic missiles that “can reach America.”

“Fortunately,” wrote one of the staffers, “we can trust President Trump to take the correct course of action at the appropriate time to protect America.” 

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