We must commit war crimes to stop Iran from getting WMDs...or was it Iraq?

We have seen this bullshit before.

Shortly after midnight on June 15^th, rescue workers sift through the rubble of a residential building in the Narmak neighbourhood of Tehran, searching for survivors and retrieving the dead in the aftermath of another Israeli attack on Iran. | Copyright © Meghdad Madadi, licensed under CC BY 4.0

The West seeks to take action, to ensure this country does not obtain weapons of mass destruction! While the West has been claiming for years that this country is on the verge of developing weapons of mass destruction “any day now”, we’re really sure they’re right this time!

That’s why the West needs to stage a military invasion of this country, with a coalition of the willing, to ensure the WMDs that have been on their way “any day now” are never allowed to arrive!

We need to commit widespread war crimes against random civilians, to make sure we stop this country from developing WMDs that they could use to commit widespread war crimes against random civilians!

Also, perhaps we should attempt regime change and the imposition of a new pro-Western puppet ruler, who will surely be beloved by the people and not face lasting insurgency campaigns from a variety of anti-Western factions! And surely this will not trigger a wave of anti-Western sentiment for decades to come!

But here’s a quick question for you, before we continue. Am I talking about Iran in 2025, or Iraq in 2003?

In the words of famous time-traveller Marty McFly:

“Hey, I’ve seen this one before!”

Back in the far-off world of November 8^th, 2002, the United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 1441, claiming that Saddam Hussein’s Iraq was breaching the ceasefire terms of the Gulf War imposed by UNSC Resolution 687.

At the time Resolution 1441 was passed, United States Ambassador to the UN John Negroponte made it clear that it did not authorize any military action against Iraq, merely that the UNSC would consider action if Iraq did not submit to this final opportunity for UN and IAEA inspections.

And as head of the inspection agency Dr. Hans Blix reported to the UNSC on February 14^th, 2003, UN inspectors in Iraq had “not found any such weapons” when it comes to the topic of WMDs, and the regime did cooperate with inspection efforts, as UNSC Resolution 1441 demanded of them.

This created a problem for American President George W. Bush, in that Blix’s report directly contradicted what both he and British Prime Minister Tony Blair had claimed about Iraq and WMDs, that they were non-cooperative and amassing a new stockpile. Blix would soon claim that the United States had spied on him in order to discredit him.

In the months leading up to the Iraq War, Blair and Bush would repeatedly peddle the lie that Iraq had WMDs and was amassing more, with Blair claiming on September 24^th, 2002 during Question Period that regime change was not the purpose, merely disarmament of WMDs.

But again, Iraq did not have the WMDs, and was cooperating with UN and IAEA inspectors, so the purpose very transparently was regime change…and this became abundantly clear after “Operation Iraqi Freedom” led to Saddam Hussein hanging from a noose, with an endless sea of war crimes perpetuated against the people of Iraq by Coalition forces.

I don’t imagine white phosphorus falling on children in Fallujah and burning them alive made them feel “free”. Do you?

Let us switch to another track, the current Israel—Iran War, a hot ignition of the prior proxy conflicts between these two regional powers. Israel possesses advanced nuclear weapons, including a nuclear triad of land-based ICBMs, sea-based SLCMs, and air-based nuclear bombs and missiles. Thus, Israel holds nuclear weapons outside the regime set forth in the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

What we know as a fact is that Iran has a nuclear program, which they use for civilian purposes including clean electricity and the production of medical isotopes. With nuclear as the main alternative to fossil fuels for base load power, and many diseases best treated by radiopharmaceuticals, there are extremely valid reasons for Iran, and indeed any state, to have a domestic nuclear program, and that’s why there had been a deal with Iran to that extent.

What we also know is that Iran does have at least three enrichment sites located underground in order to ensure resilience to airstrikes, and the IAEA claims that Iran is enriching uranium to 60% purity. Anything above 20% is considered highly-enriched uranium, but weapons-grade uranium typically goes higher than 60%, closer to 90%. Naval fleets also use highly-enriched uranium, not for weapons but for energy-efficient propulsion of ships.

So perhaps there is a more credible case that Iran could soon possess WMDs than there was for Iraq. There’s also a credible case that Iran was fully cooperative with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action to ensure their nuclear program remained peaceful, until Trump pointlessly withdrew in 2017 out of spite for his predecessor Obama, only to come back eight years later when it was far too late.

But there’s just one problem with the theory that Iran is right on the verge of a nuclear weapon: Benjamin Netanyahu has been claiming Iran will have a nuclear weapon “soon” for over thirty years.

In 1992, Netanyahu claimed on the floor of the Israeli Knesset that Iran was “three to five years” away from a nuclear weapon. In 1995, he claimed in his book Fighting Terrorism that Iran was still “three to five years” away. And in his first term as Prime Minister from 1996 to 1999, he kept repeating that it was “close.”

In 2012, during his second term as Prime Minister, Netanyahu gave an absurd speech on the floor of the UN General Assembly, holding up a cartoon-like drawing of a bomb, almost as if purchased by Wile E. Coyote from ACME.

And here he again said Iran was close, even though three years later in 2015, Al-Jazeera and The Guardian revealed that the Mossad’s assessment in 2012 a few weeks before the UN speech told Netanyahu that “Iran at this stage is not performing the activity necessary to produce weapons.”

In 2018, Netanyahu claimed to have obtained documents revealing a secret Iranian nuclear weapons program. Again, and again, and again, since literally before my own birth, Benjamin Netanyahu has started every single morning by saying “Boker Tov, Iran is about to develop a nuclear weapon.”

We are now in 2025, and Israel has launched a war with a preemptive strike, ostensibly on the basis that Iran is close to obtaining WMDs, but also with musings of regime change. Likud MK and Minister of Science & Technology Gila Gamliel has publicly indicated her support for Reza Pahlavi, the son of the deposed Shah, the former autocratic puppet ruler backed by America and Britain in Iran’s 1953 coup d’état.

Also, United States intelligence claims that Iran was not actively pursuing a weapon, and that even if they decided to they would be three years away. Hmm. Hmmmmm.

So, to sum this up: Western involvement in a war in the Middle East, based on a false pretense of WMDs that don’t exist, for the ulterior motive of regime change, which will only trigger massive blowback against the Western nations involved, perpetuate a wide assortment of war crimes, and make life worse for every single person involved?

Yes, we’ve indeed seen this bullshit before, and we are familiar with the song-and-dance performed by the war hawks to justify their neoconservative blood-thirst. So let us conclude, with the wise words of war criminal George W. Bush:

“There's an old saying in Tennessee, I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee, that says ‘Fool me once, shame on...shame on you. Fool me...you can't get fooled again.’”