Unreleased documentary footage reviewed by The Wall Street Journal reveals that the late US Senator Lindsey Graham conducted a years-long private campaign to draw the United States into direct military confrontation with Iran, at times advocating measures more aggressive than those Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was prepared to support. The recordings, captured by British filmmaker Alex Holder for a forthcoming documentary whose working title, “Lindsey’s Game,” reflects Graham’s own characterisation of foreign policy as a game, show the senator repeatedly pressing President Donald Trump to authorise strikes and join Israeli operations. They include a plan in early March to fly to Florida and persuade Trump to bomb Hezbollah targets in Lebanon.

Viewed from Washington, Graham emerges as a central architect of the push for military action, celebrating the February strikes on Iran with visible emotion and telling his crew that Trump was “excited” about the operation. According to the footage, Graham believed the Iranian regime would collapse within three to four weeks and worked to rally Saudi Arabia and other regional actors behind the campaign. From Jerusalem, however, the recordings capture a more cautious calculus. In a 4 March telephone call, Netanyahu dissuaded Graham from seeking direct US involvement in Lebanon, arguing that opening a second front while the Iran campaign was underway would be strategically premature and risk triggering an unrestrained Hezbollah response. Graham accepted the prime minister’s advice, calling it “good counsel,” and refocused on the primary objective of toppling the government in Tehran.

The documentary, filmed with extraordinary access from 2023 until Graham’s death this month, also documents his diplomatic shuttling—including meetings with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to promote the war project and sessions with Mossad officials—and his growing frustration with Trump’s subsequent diplomacy. When the US president signed a preliminary agreement with Iran in June, Graham privately expressed anger that Trump was “wavering,” and in his final weeks he appeared exhausted yet fixated on closing what he called the “Iran file” before dying. His predictions of a swift Iranian collapse proved inaccurate, and the footage shows him lamenting that the administration was not adequately promoting the war’s achievements.

The Israeli government has not commented on the leaked recordings. The documentary is expected to be released in the coming months, offering what its director describes as an unvarnished look at the senator’s final years and his role in shaping US Middle East policy. The material is likely to fuel debate in Washington and allied capitals over the extent of legislative influence on executive war-making decisions and the gap between private advocacy and public positioning.