Sounds familiar: Was this said about Iraq in 2003, or Iran in 2025?

With Israel and the US engaged in an escalating conflict with Iran, Western leaders are using words that sound all too familiar from the lead-up to the Iraq war.

“Today, we have the greater power to free a nation by breaking a dangerous and aggressive regime. With new tactics and precision weapons, we can achieve military objectives without directing violence against civilians.”

That may sound like something said yesterday, following US strikes on Iran.

But it wasn’t.

Those words were delivered by United States President George W Bush on board the USS Abraham Lincoln on May 1, 2003, as he marked the end of major combat operations in Iraq.