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Netanyahu's 2002 Testimony: "I Guarantee You"

On September 12, 2002, one year and one day after the September 11 attacks, Benjamin Netanyahu sat before a committee of the U.S. House of Representatives. He was not prime minister at the time; he was between terms, testifying as a private citizen and "expert." He urged Congress to back an invasion of Iraq. He promised it would go well. And in the same testimony he named the country he wanted next: Iran.

This is the clearest single piece of video evidence that the Iraq war and the Iran war are two steps of the same plan, pushed by the same man, and that the plan relied on American soldiers. Six months later the United States invaded Iraq. About 4,500 American service members died there.

What he said, on camera​

The key lines, as captured by C-SPAN:

"If you take out Saddam's regime, I guarantee you that it will have enormous positive reverberations on the region."

He added that "people sitting right next door in Iran, young people, and many others, will say the time of such regimes, of such despots is gone" (C-SPAN clip, "Netanyahu 2002: I guarantee you").

Then he named Iran as a goal and linked it to the 9/11 attacks:

"we're benefiting from one thing, and that is the attack on the Twin Towers and Pentagon and the American struggle in Iraq. Obviously, we'd like to see a regime change. At least I would in Iran, just as I would like to see in Iraq."

Source: C-SPAN clip of the 2002 testimony, as played and transcribed by The Young Turks, June 8, 2025. A June 2025 video put another line from the testimony on screen: "It's not a question of whether Iraq's regime should be taken out, but when should it be taken out?" (YouTube, June 19, 2025).

"Regime change" means overthrowing a country's government, not just damaging its weapons. In 2002 he wanted it in both Iraq and Iran. In June 2025, according to an anonymous Trump administration official quoted by The Grayzone, Israeli briefers again "demonstrated a single-minded focus on regime change" in Iran (see Israeli intelligence fed to the President).

How the testimony is remembered in 2025 and 2026​

The clip returned to wide circulation when Israel struck Iran in June 2025.

  • A transcript attributed to the creator Brandon Aceto, posted July 5, 2025, set the quote next to the argument of John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt's book The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, that pro-Israel advocacy "played a major role in dragging the U.S. into the Iraq war," and concluded: "The same playbook is being used with Iran today" (@apocalypseos on X, July 5, 2025, video).
  • Commentator Tony Seruga, arguing against the 2026 defense bill that ties the U.S. and Israeli militaries together, described Netanyahu as "The same Netanyahu who's been pushing America into Middle Eastern wars since he testified before Congress in 2002" (Seruga on X, July 7, 2026). Seruga's wording that the testimony demanded invading "Iraq, Iran, and Libya" is his summary; the quoted lines above are Netanyahu's.
  • The Young Turks titled their June 2025 segment "PROOF Netanyahu Wants US To Fight His Wars" (YouTube).

What happened next​

  • The promise. "Enormous positive reverberations on the region." What followed instead was a war that cost about 4,500 American lives, a long insurgency, and, as critics on the right and left note, a stronger Iran next door.
  • The target. Iran, named in 2002, was bombed by the United States in June 2025 and again in the war that began February 28, 2026.
  • The method. In 2002 Netanyahu, a foreign politician, asked the American Congress to send American soldiers to overthrow a government. His later appeals to Congress, in 2015 and 2024, are on his speeches to Congress.

The 2002 testimony also fits the list of countries that retired General Wesley Clark said the Pentagon planned to take out after 9/11, a list that ends with Iran; see the Pentagon's post-9/11 country list.

ClaimRating
Netanyahu testified to Congress in September 2002 for invading Iraq, promising "enormous positive reverberations"CONFIRMED
In the same testimony he said he wanted regime change in Iran "just as" in IraqCONFIRMED
The Iraq and Iran wars are steps of one long campaign he pushed on the United StatesSTRONG

Status: Benjamin Netanyahu, Tony Seruga, John Mearsheimer, and Stephen Walt are alive.

Sources​

Last Updated: 2026-09-26

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