Donald Trump’s naked threats to target Iran’s civilian infrastructure are the culmination of a strand of neoconservative thought that has defined U.S. war-making over three decades, from the Iraq war to Obama’s drone campaigns to the Gaza genocide.

The neocons were a conspiracy in plain sight who fomented the Iraq war, says star academic Heather Cox Richardson, dismissing “tin foil hat” theorizing. Though even her questioning about the causes of the war stops short of the role of Israel in neoconservative thought.

The media can’t talk about Sheldon Adelson when discussing the US confrontation with Iran over nukes, though he’s only Trump’s biggest donor, and John Bolton’s protector, and he was at White House officials’ side when they took part in a settlers’ bash in occupied Jerusalem.