These 10 People Were Wrong About Iraq – You Shouldn’t Listen to Them About Iran Either
From Newt Gingrich to Sean Hannity to John Bolton, the shameless warmongering gang is back.
Benjamin Netanyahu, in 2002, urged US politicians to invade Iraq: "If you take out Saddam, Saddam's regime, I guarantee you that it will have enormous positive reverberations on the region."
As always is the case with Washington, Netanyahu got his wish. And we saw the consequences: hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and thousands of US soldiers killed – to the tune of trillions in US tax dollars spent.
Netanyahu was helped by some of the most overconfident, blood-thirsty, and prominent figures in American public life, doing everything they could to make sure Americans’ taxes funded a devastating war premised entirely on lies: that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, that the US needed to pursue regime change to win the so-called "War on Terror," and that doing so would promote democracy in the Middle East.
And now, after Israel’s Trump-backed bombing of Iran, the gang’s all back!
Israel’s drastic escalation in Iran – after inflicting a genocide in Palestine, and bombing Lebanon, Yemen, Syria – portends to open up into total war. Netanyahu may publicly use Iraq War-esque euphemisms about liberating Iranian people from the “regime,” but his own defense minister promises that “the residents of Tehran will pay the price.”
While many prominent Iraq War-era Democrats have remained mum, conservative figures are in total war hawk overdrive. They’re scrambling to sell you on another disastrous war. Their appetite for war is endless – and their eyes are leering at the next meal.
Here’s what they said back then, compared to what they’re saying now, and why you should never listen to any of them ever again on anything related to issues of war and peace or the Middle East:
Newt Gingrich
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich was straightforward decades ago. Repeatedly, after 9/11, Gingrich insisted that the US must “replace Saddam.” And this week, Gingrich is beating the same drum, calling for regime change in Iran.
“The replacement of the theocratic dictatorship in Iran with a secular government committed to peace with neighbors, prosperity for Iranians and a non-nuclear future is the only outcome of the current Israeli-Iranian war that would be a success,” Gingrich insisted.
David Frum
David Frum is the author of the neoconservative 2004 endless war manual, An End to Evil: How to Win the War on Terror, and a former speechwriter for President George W. Bush. He helped coin the infamous term “Axis of Evil” used by Bush in his 2002 State of the Union address to gin up antagonism against Iraq, Iran, and North Korea (and a speech that was instrumental in spurring the horrific invasion of Iraq).
Two years ago, Frum wrote a somewhat mea culpa about the Iraq War. While acknowledging the huge mortal and financial cost, he still hedged: “Where would the United States, Iraq, and the region be today if the U.S. has left Saddam in place in 2003?”
But it seems Frum’s tepid mea culpa didn’t even register in his own head. He fell back into place, supporting Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza (an act he has said was “inevitable”) – and then last week, he welcomed Israel’s attack on Iran as the sign of a “free Iran,” and proof that “forcibly” disarming an adversary is better than diplomacy alone.