The PM who cries wolf

Fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again.

George W. Bush

From Superman #173, via Comic Book Cartography.

Collected and laid out by the genial Nima Shirazi in his Wide Asleep in America: Binyamin Netanyahu's testimony before the House Committee on Government and Oversight in September 2002, and things he says today. I thought it really needed to be spread around.

Benjamin Netanyahu, September 12, 2002:

"[I]t is simply not reflecting the reality to assume that Saddam isn’t feverishly working to develop nuclear weapons, as we speak."

Benjamin Netanyahu, April 18, 2012:

"Today, the regime in Iran openly calls and determinedly works for our destruction. And it is feverishly working to develop atomic weaponsto achieve that goal."

Benjamin Netanyahu, September 12, 2002:

"How imminent is it [the threat from Iraq]? Look, do you want to wait and find out?  The answer is no."

Benjamin Netanyahu, September 11, 2012: 

"The world tells Israel, 'Wait, there's still time,' and I say, 'Wait for what, wait until when?'...The fact is that every day that passes, Iran gets closer and closer to nuclear bombs."

Benjamin Netanyahu, September 12, 2002: 

"[Iraq] happens to be one of the two - now, as we know, one of the three - regimes that is racing to build nuclear weapons."

Benjamin Netanyahu, September 16, 2012:

"And for me, the issue is, as the prime minister of a country that is threatened with annihilation by a brutal regime in Tehran that is racing to develop nuclear bombs for that and, obviously, we cannot delegate the job of stopping Iran if all else fails to someone else."

Benjamin Netanyahu, September 12, 2002:

"Today the United States must destroy the same regime because a nuclear-armed Saddam will place the security of our entire world at risk."

Benjamin Netanyahu, March 5, 2012:

"For fifteen years, I’ve been warning that a nuclear-armed Iran is a grave danger to my country and to the peace and security of the world."

Benjamin Netanyahu, September 12, 2002:

"Every indication we have is that he [Saddam] is pursuing, pursuing with abandon, pursuing with every ounce of effort, the establishment of weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons."

Benjamin Netanyahu, September 16, 2012:

"Come on. We know that they're working towards a weapon. We know that. It's not something that we surmise. We have absolutely certainty about that. And they're advancing towards that nuclear program."

Benjamin Netanyahu, September 12, 2002:  

"There is no question whatsoever that Saddam is seeking and is working and is advancing towards the development of nuclear weapons — no question whatsoever."

During a March 7, 2012 interview on Fox News, Greta Van Susteren asked Netayahu about the case for illegally attacking Iran in light of what the world now knows about the lies that led to the invasion of Iraq.  "Do you have any doubt they [Iran] have a nuclear weapons program?," Van Susteren wondered.  The Israeli Prime Minister replied: "I think there is no question."

Van Susteren continued, "[I]n 2003, with weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, there was so much certainty and it turned out, our intelligence was wrong on that. So I am trying to balance the two."

The response from Netanyahu was immediate.  It was also confounding, considering his testimony to Congress ten years ago.  He told Van Susteren:

"First of all, there is no question. There is no comparison. In the case of Iraq, I was on the Israeli cabinet when we discussed this issue. We didn't know. We couldn't say that they didn't have a nuclear weapons program, we couldn't say if they did. In the case of Iran there is absolutely no question."

Astonishing how little he bothers even to rewrite the script. He's not ashamed of his part in driving the US to that unnecessary and criminal war ten years ago, he's anxious to do it again. It doesn't prove Iran is not building a nuclear weapon--but it makes it so clear what the quality of the evidence is!