What do you make of this video of Netanyahu testifying before congress, encouraging the US to invade Iraq and kill Saddam Hussein?

Thoughts:

1) It’s a pitch for Congress and for Americans, trying to sell people on invading Iraq and the prospects of “regime change”.

2) He presents an approach that he is making an effort to sell as his philosophy as the intelligent, reasoned, democratic, studied, experienced, US ally that he’s also selling himself as. How genuine that is, I don’t know enough about Netanyahu to have a strong opinion about. But he is clearly also a politician speaking publicly to the world.

3) He explains that philosophy pretty clearly in the video. Fight and win against terrorist “regimes” repeatedly, using military force. Effect regime change, hope to effect change that moves in the direction of a democracy like Turkey (cough cough).

This was before, when Netanyahu was just a standard neoconservative. At that time neoconservatism was still the dominant foreign policy and there was a real belief that America was in a unique position to intervene and do perceived positive things in the world. Hell, at the time I was kind of a neoconservative. I truly believed at the time that America could, at times, use our armed forces to be a stablilizing force for unstable regions. So certainly in retrospect I was wrong, Netanyahu was wrong, and the US was spectacularly wrong. (When it finally came to it, though, I was opposed to the war. I saw Colin Powell’s testimony and I was not convinced.)

However, let’s look at a counterfactual. What if Iraq truly did have a nuclear bomb program and other WMDs? And what if the US in the invasion found them and eliminated them? Would the world maybe have been in a safer place? I don’t know.

Thank you both for your great answers. @Caravanfan do you think Netanyahu’s approach to fighting terrorism has evolved since then or do you think he would stand by his testimony today if you played him this clip?

“However, let’s look at a counterfactual. What if Iraq truly did have a nuclear bomb program and other WMDs? And what if the US in the invasion found them and eliminated them? Would the world maybe have been in a safer place? I don’t know.”

It’s an interesting question. Certainly preventing Saddam from having WMDs (in the hypothetical where that was actually happening) would be extremely important to the region, but also the world as well. Saddam had previously shown a willingness to launch SCUD missiles into Israel, and I think it would have been a very rational fear that he’d use a WMD on Israel if given the opportunity. That said, there are other ways to thwart a nuclear program that don’t involve regime change and occupation.

Sorta. Stuxnet fucked with centrifuges. It was also several years later. It would have had no effect on nuclear bombs already deployed on Scud missiles.

@Caravanfan True, Stuxnet specifically came later, but the point is, subversive, espionage alternatives to regime change and occupation have existed and been employed for decades. I would like to believe there were other options had the WMDs actually existed.

IMO the invasion of Iraq was mostly a political smoke-screen to distract from the failure to get Bin Laden and provide a military “win” for Bush heading into his reelection campaign.

Yeah. I was and am no fan of forced US regime change. I can’t think of a time that ended well. I’m just saying that at the time Netanyahu’s view was not out of the geopolitical norm. And nobody denies Saddam was an asshole

I think Netanyahu is a little bit of a war monger, and all along I was never completely on board with going into Iraq, but conservatives at the time were pretty much gungho about it. Many Democrats even got on board, because 9/11 made Americans scared and angry and many Americans group together the entire ME region.

If there was such a thing as foresight – which there isn’t – Netanyahu would have understood that getting rid of Hussein would lead to the dissolution of the Ba’athist hold on Iraq, which in turn lead to the Islamic State (and all its damage), and the Civil War in Syria, and the various regime changes across the Arab world.

But it’s hard to criticize Netanyahu for saying something in 2002 that didn’t anticipate actions 12–15 years later.

About the only thing one can say is that – right or wrong – Netanyahu was trying to protect Israel (which is after all, what he was elected to do).

I’ve NEVER been a fan of Netanyahu. I see him as a LOT of the problem with anything Gaza related. At the same time, in 2002 Baby Bush was President & he was looking for a reason to invade Iraq & Netanyahu’s narrative fit his agenda. He has since admitted that he fabricated the WMD narrative because he wanted to eradicate Saddam for attempting to assassinate Daddy Bush when he was in office. It was a personal agenda from the get go & Netanyahu was just a pawn in that international game of chess where everybody cheats. He may have been a willing pawn, but nevertheless he was a pawn to achieve the desired end & was effective!!! This is another case of how hindsight is 100/100.