He said (my emphasis):

…[W]e have yet to see any signs that the tyrants of Tehran are reconsidering their pursuit of nuclear weapons.  The only time that Iran suspended its nuclear program was for a brief period in 2003 when the regime believed it faced a credible threat of military action against it. And the simple paradox is this: if the international community, led by the United States, hopes to stop Iran’s nuclear program without resorting to military action, it will have to convince Iran that it is prepared to take such action.   Containment will not work against Iran. It won’t work with a brazen regime that accuses America of bombing its own cities on 9/11, openly calls for Israel’s annihilation, and is the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism.

What Netanyahu chose to leave out of his cursory summary of recent U.S./Israel/Iran relations is that, as Stephen Walt reminded us earlier this week, in 2003, Iran sent a letter (PDF) to the Bush administration offering a grand bargain which included a deal on Iran’s nuclear program and an end to Iranian support of Hezbollah militants and Hamas. (IPS’s Gareth Porter reported on the offer, and the brusque rejection it received from the Bush administration.)

While it’s impossible to determine whether the Iranians would have followed through on their offer, the lack of an Iran-strategy which could capitalize on Iranian offers of cooperation (even if out of concern of a military attack) is still evident, seven years later, in Netanyahu’s speech. Indeed, in light of the passed up opportunity in 2003, Netanyahu’s speech might be interpreted as promoting a military attack instead of the threat of a military strike.

Netanyahu suggests that “containment will not work” against the “tyrants of Tehran” and that Iran will only respond to the threat of force. But the passed up opportunities for rapprochement–a series of Iranian attempts at outreach have been cataloged by Ambassador James Dobbins–tells a different story with doesn’t fit as neatly with Netanyahu’s generalizations and stereotypes of Iranian leadership or their behavior.

• AFP: Michael Comte reports on Sen. Lindsay Graham’s (R-SC) recent comments on China and Iran. The remarks included a call for “bold” action to deal with Iran and a statement which appeared to endorse military action against Iran’s nuclear program. “[If President Barack Obama] decides to be tough with Iran beyond sanctions, I think he is going to feel a lot of Republican support for the idea that we cannot let Iran develop a nuclear weapon,” he told the Halifax International Security Forum. “Containment is off the table,” Graham added. If the United States were to pursue a military option against Iran, Graham emphasized that it would be a war, “not to just neutralize their nuclear program, but to sink their navy, destroy their air force and deliver a decisive blow to the Revolutionary Guard, in other words neuter that regime.” Graham also warned that a “period of confrontation” with China over its “cheating” currency manipulation was drawing closer.

• The National Interest: George Washington University professor Hossein Askari argues that a nuclear enrichment agreement with Iran would only serve to lift some sanctions. Meanwhile, Tehran could continue secretly pursuing their nuclear program and “meddling in the region to pressure the United States.” Askari suggests negotiations and a fuel swap agreement are simply stalling tactics coming from a regime that views America as “their existential threat.” “The atomic issue is not America’s central problem with Iran, the regime is the problem, a fact that America must painfully acknowledge and so reorient its strategic interests,” says Askari. He concludes that the United States should support the opposition and reform movements within Iran, while expanding sanctions and freezing foreign bank accounts of Iranian citizens in excess of “say $1 million or $5 million.”

• National Review: National Review senior editor Jay Nordlinger laments that his warnings about the imminence of an Iran bomb have gone unnoted in the public discourse. Last year he interviewed former Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte, who opined that Iran would have a bomb by 2015. Believing he had a scoop, Nordlinger  ”put it here in the Corner. I put it in my web column. I put it in a piece for National Review (at the tippy-top). I put it everywhere but in concert and opera reviews.” Nordlinger writes, “And . . . nothing. No one commented, no one noticed — no one said, ‘Holy-moly!’” Casting himself as a prophet ignored, Nordlinger concludes: “Oh, well, it could be that the Iranian A-bomb is simply a foregone conclusion, or a topic that bores people. I fear it will not be so boring, when the mullahs go nuclear.”

• Jerusalem Post: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. Vice President Joe Biden met in New Orleans this weekend during the Jewish Federations of North America’s general assembly . Netanyahu reportedly told Biden, “The only way to ensure that Iran is not armed with nuclear weapons is to create a credible threat of military action against it, unless it stops its race to obtain nuclear weapons.” Netanyahu said paradoxically that a military threat was the only way to avoid war, and that he feared Western governments were falling into Tehran’s hands: “Iran is attempting to mislead the West and there are worrying signs that the international community is captivated by this mirage.”