How Trump's 2026 Iran war' script echoes and twists the 2003 Iraq playbook

"In January 2003, President George W Bush stood before the United States Congress to warn of a grave danger from a dictator, a former US client in the Middle East, armed with weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Twenty-three years later, in the same chamber, President Donald Trump used his State of the Union address to paint a strikingly similar narrative: A rogue regime, a looming nuclear threat, and a ticking clock."

"As Washington pivots from the neoconservatives' preemptive doctrine of the Bush era to what experts are calling the preventive maintenance of the Trump era following the June 2025 strikes on Iran in tandem with Israel's attack in the 12-day war questions are mounting about the intelligence, the endgame, and the alarming lack of checks and balances."

"The administration is updating the visual dictionary of fear, says Osama Abu Irshaid, a Washington-based political analyst. They are exaggerating the nuclear threat exactly as the Bush administration did with the smoking gun' metaphor. But there is a key difference: In 2003..."

The Trump administration's rhetoric against Iran mirrors the 2003 justifications for invading Iraq under President Bush, both citing weapons of mass destruction threats and rogue regimes. However, the geopolitical context has shifted significantly. While Bush's administration emphasized visible nuclear threats like mushroom clouds, current messaging focuses on underground nuclear capabilities. The administration employs preventive maintenance doctrine rather than preemptive war doctrine. Key differences exist: the current approach lacks the international coalition support of 2003, operates with a fractured team, isolated diplomacy, and faces dangerous information chaos. Analysts note the administration exaggerates nuclear threats using updated fear narratives, similar to the 'smoking gun' metaphor used previously.

Read at www.aljazeera.com