In January 2003, President George W. Bush stood before the US Congress and warned of the “grave danger” of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) posed by “dictators” in America’s former client states in the Middle East.
Twenty-three years later, in the same chamber, President Donald Trump told a strikingly similar story of a rogue regime, a looming nuclear threat, and a ticking clock in his State of the Union address.
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In a dark twist of historical irony, Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, armed to the teeth by America in the 1980-1988 war between Iraq and the emerging Islamic Republic of Iran, surpassed Osama bin Laden to become Washington’s number one public enemy. Now, that label appears to be being applied to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei, a key leader during that disastrous war against Iraq that left a million people dead.
But while the phrase “war script” sounds familiar, the geopolitical stage has changed dramatically.
As Washington pivots from Bush-era neoconservative “pre-emption” doctrine to what experts are calling Trump-era “preemptive maintenance” in the wake of the June 2025 attack on Iran, which paralleled the attack on Israel in the 12-Day War, questions are mounting about intelligence, endgames, and an alarming lack of checks and balances.
Semiotics of fear: From clouds to tunnels
In 2003, the visual language of war was vertical. There were fears of “mushroom clouds” rising over American cities and biological weapons infiltrating populated areas. Today, fear is said to lie in a different direction, deep underground.
“The regime is updating its visual dictionary of fear,” said Osama Abu Irshaied, a Washington-based political analyst. “They are exaggerating the nuclear threat in exactly the same way as the Bush administration did with the ‘smoking gun’ metaphor. But there is a crucial difference: In 2003, U.S. intelligence was being manipulated to go along with that lie. In 2026, the intelligence community’s assessments actually contradict Trump’s claims.”
President Trump claimed in his State of the Union address that Iran is “rebuilding” its nuclear program to attack the U.S. mainland, but his officials have offered conflicting views. White House press secretary Caroline Leavitt on Tuesday parroted her boss and claimed that Iranian facilities were “destroyed” by Operation Midnight Hammer in 2025. But days earlier, Trump special envoy Steve Witkoff claimed Tehran was “one week away” from the bombing.
Analysts say this “information disruption” has a specific purpose. The idea is to keep the threat sufficiently vague to justify sustained military pressure.
“President Bush benefited from the post-9/11 anger of tying Iraq to an existential threat,” Abu Irshaied told Al Jazeera. “Trump doesn’t have that. Iran has not attacked the US mainland. So he has to fabricate a direct threat, claiming that Iranian ballistic missiles can reach the US. This claim is not supported by technological reality.”
Quagmire of regime change
Perhaps the most striking contrast with 2003 is the consistency within the regime.
The Bush team – Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and Vice President Paul Wolfowitz – acted in ideological alignment. Cheney famously predicted that the U.S. military would be “welcomed as liberators.”
They never were. The made-for-TV scenes of the torn down of a statue of Saddam Hussein in central Baghdad were soon replaced by a sustained and organized battle against the US occupation, heavy US military losses, and sectarian bloodshed that brought Iraq to the brink of all-out civil war.
In May 2003, President Bush declared the end of large-scale combat operations by raising a flag saying “Mission Accomplished,” which once again caused trouble for his administration and the United States.
Trump’s 2026 team appears to be even more divided, torn between “America First” isolationism and aggressive interventionism.
Official line: Vice President J.D. Vance and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth have publicly stated that the goal is not regime change. “We are not at war with Iran, we are at war with Iran’s nuclear program,” Vance said Sunday. Presidential hunch: President Trump hit back at them on social media, posting, “If the current Iranian regime can’t make Iran great again, why can’t regime change happen? MIGA!!!”
“The neoconservatives who took over policy under the Bush administration have weakened,” Abu Irshaied said. “But they have been replaced by people like Stephen Miller, who has absolute loyalty to Trump and close ties to the Israeli right. Trump is driven by instinct, not strategy. He is pursuing the ‘victory’ that his predecessors have avoided: the complete hollowing out of Iran, whether through the capitulation or collapse of the wealthy.”
The Lonely Power: Enforcement on the Union
In 2003, President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair worked tirelessly to build a “coalition of the willing.” It was a diplomatic charade, but it existed. Prime Minister Blair remains a hated figure in some Middle Eastern and Western countries for his diplomatic cover-up of the Iraq debacle.
In 2026, the United States operates in complete isolation.
“Trump is not building a coalition; he is alienating allies,” Abu Irshaied said. He points to a pattern of “extortion” ranging from tariffs on the European Union to attempts to “buy” Greenland. “European countries see the coercion being done against Iran and are concerned that it will work against them. Unlike in 2003, only Israel is fully on board.”
This isolation was highlighted by Britain’s reported refusal to allow the US to use its island bases to attack Iran, forcing B-2 bombers to fly 18-hour missions directly from the US mainland during the 2025 operation.
The breakdown of checks and balances
In the wake of the intelligence community’s abhorrent failures and lies during the Iraq War, increased Congressional oversight was promised. Twenty years later, those guardrails seem to have disappeared.
Despite efforts by Rep. Ro Khanna (D) and Rep. Thomas Massie (R) to launch a “discharge petition” to stop an unauthorized war, the political reality is harsh.
“The concept of checks and balances is facing severe challenges,” Abu Irshaied warned. “The Republican Party is now effectively Trump’s party. The Supreme Court leans to the right. Trump is operating with expanded post-9/11 powers that allow for ‘limited strikes,’ which could easily become the open wars he claims to avoid.”
With the regime citing Tehran’s killing of “32,000” protesters, a figure significantly higher than its own estimates and dismissed by Iran as a “big lie” on Wednesday, the moral basis for escalation is being laid, bypassing the need for a UN resolution or parliamentary approval.
As U.S. and Iranian negotiators meet in Geneva for make-or-break negotiations in the shadow of last year’s Operation Midnight Hammer, questions remain. After decades of simmering hostility, are the two countries on the brink of a new agreement, or is this the harbinger of a war that could ignite the entire region?
