By Don Terry, Ben Emos & Mary Jones | Thursday, June 19, 2025 | 6 min read
In the swirling tension of modern Middle Eastern geopolitics, it’s easy to get lost in the headlines, the bombings, the press conferences, and the urgent declarations of existential threats. Yet if one takes a step back and examines the patterns that have emerged over the last two decades, a clearer — and perhaps more troubling — narrative emerges. Central to that story is Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, whose fingerprints are on some of the most consequential moments of Western foreign policy in the 21st century.
While the public memory often condenses war decisions into the names of U.S. presidents, those paying attention remember that Benjamin Netanyahu played a visible, vocal role in the campaign to sell the Iraq War to the American public and policymakers. In 2002, a year before the invasion, Netanyahu testified before the U.S. Congress, stating unequivocally that Saddam Hussein was developing nuclear weapons and that the threat was not theoretical but imminent. “If you take out Saddam’s regime,” he said, “I guarantee you that it will have enormous positive reverberations on the region.” It is now widely accepted that these assurances — like so many claims made in the lead-up to the Iraq War — were based on deeply flawed or outright false intelligence. No weapons of mass destruction were found. The promised reverberations never came. Instead, the region was plunged into further chaos, with Iraq becoming a breeding ground for insurgency, civil war, and the eventual rise of ISIS.
What is less discussed, but increasingly relevant, is how similar Netanyahu’s rhetoric was then to his later posture on Iran. Again and again, over the past 15 years, he has claimed that Iran is mere months away from developing a nuclear bomb. In 2012, Netanyahu famously appeared before the United Nations with a cartoon-style diagram of a bomb, warning that time was running out to stop Tehran. These claims, repeated over the years, have been treated with increasing skepticism by the international community — not because the Iranian regime is benevolent, but because the evidence for an imminent nuclear threat has never quite materialized in the way Netanyahu insisted.
The parallels are impossible to ignore. In both Iraq and Iran, Netanyahu presented threats as immediate and absolute, using dramatic language and imagery to raise the stakes. In both cases, he advocated not merely for sanctions or containment, but for preemptive, military responses — sometimes directly calling for the United States to take the lead. The intelligence in both scenarios has been questioned by independent observers. And in both cases, Netanyahu positioned Israel as the frontline state requiring U.S. backing to secure the broader democratic world from catastrophe.
Critics argue that this pattern amounts to a form of premature military advocacy, one that oversimplifies complex geopolitical dynamics into binary choices — war or annihilation — and pressures allies, especially the United States, into actions that serve Israeli strategic interests while exposing American soldiers, budgets, and political capital to the fallout. The strategy works because it trades in certainty and fear: a recipe that has proven effective in democratic societies wrestling with security anxiety.
Now, in the wake of Israel’s latest attack on Iranian military infrastructure — a highly provocative move amid an already volatile regional backdrop — Netanyahu’s old playbook appears to be back in circulation. Following the strike, Israeli officials swiftly requested American support, framing the confrontation as a defense of Western values against a hostile theocratic regime. Once again, the appeal is not simply for solidarity, but for tangible military and political backing. The urgency, the moral framing, and the claims about imminent danger are all there — echoing speeches and memos from the early 2000s.
To be clear, Iran is not a harmless actor. Its regime has engaged in state-sponsored terrorism, regional meddling, and brutal repression at home. There is reason to be concerned about its nuclear ambitions. But concern is not the same as a case for war. A cautious, critical assessment of both the evidence and the motivations behind renewed military pressure is not only prudent — it is essential. Especially given the historical track record of Netanyahu’s past warnings, which often promised clarity and resolution, but delivered instability and unintended consequences.
It’s worth noting that not all Israeli leaders have shared Netanyahu’s aggressive posture. In fact, several high-ranking former security officials have expressed concern over his tendency to escalate tensions with Iran rhetorically and militarily, warning that such moves often backfire and isolate Israel internationally. Yet Netanyahu’s political longevity and influence — both in Israel and in Washington — mean that his voice carries tremendous weight, even when previous predictions have failed to materialize.
As Americans now face pressure to respond to the latest conflict, it’s crucial to revisit the context of Netanyahu’s previous claims and interventions. This is not merely about assigning blame; it’s about learning from history. The Iraq War cost over 4,000 American lives and trillions of dollars. It destabilized an entire region and damaged the credibility of U.S. foreign policy for a generation. It also paved the way for more skepticism, more cynicism, and more division at home. If another conflict is being proposed — one that again relies on unverified or overstated intelligence, again amplified by Netanyahu, and again focused on a Middle Eastern country whose threat level is far from universally agreed upon — then due diligence is not optional. It’s a moral imperative.
Moreover, the American public has changed since 2003. There is less appetite for foreign wars, more awareness of how intelligence can be manipulated, and a deeper understanding of how certain narratives get prioritized over others. This shift should make it harder for history to repeat. But that depends entirely on whether policymakers and citizens alike are willing to ask hard questions, challenge assumptions, and recognize patterns when they reemerge.
Benjamin Netanyahu is a skilled political operator. His mastery of media, narrative, and moral urgency has served him well over a long career. But past performance is a matter of public record, and the consequences of mistaken advocacy cannot be undone by strong speeches or high-profile graphics. If he once misled the world about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and if his warnings about Iran have long failed to deliver the predicted doom, then perhaps the wisest course is not to dismiss him entirely — but to view his calls for intervention with caution, scrutiny, and a strong memory.
It is said that the first casualty of war is truth. But truth often survives in history’s long gaze, quietly waiting for people to look back and connect the dots. With another potential war looming, this is the moment to look hard, to remember what was said, and to ask whether the same story is being told again — only with different names, dates, and targets.
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