Conservative author and columnist Pat Buchanan. (YouTube)

In a sometimes tense exchange with conservative talk radio host Sean Hannity, conservative author and former presidential candidate Pat Buchanan said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's claims about Iran running a secret nuclear bomb program contradict U.S. intelligence reports, and added that Netanyahu "wants the United States to fight a war against Iran on Israel's behalf."

Buchanan, who was an adviser to Presidents Nixon, Ford, and Reagan, and writes a nationally syndicated column, further said it would be "stupid" to go to war based "on a press conference."

During the April 30 exchange on the Sean Hannity Show, the host asked Buchanan, “Did you watch Prime Minister Netanyahu today and him lay out for the world the depth of the Iranian nuclear program?"

Buchanan said, “Okay. I did watch it but let me say this, Bibi has been crying wolf for decades. U.S. intelligence agencies in 2007, and again in 2011, said with ‘high confidence’ quote, that they have no evidence of a nuclear weapons program in Iran. Subsequent to that, we had the deal."

"Now, if Iran has a nuclear weapons program and is working on it in secret, that would be an abject failure on the part of American intelligence," said Buchanan. "The CIA under Pompeo, the Defense Intelligence agency….”

Hannity interjected, “Do you actually doubt that the Iranians are building a nuclear weapons program?....”

Buchanan replied, “Look, the reason the Iranians signed the deal is because of the truth of what American intelligence said. Sean, they didn't have a nuclear weapons program.”

Conservative commentator and author Sean Hannity. (YouTube)

“Listen to me, Sean," he continued. "[Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad said, 'Look, I'm not stupid. If we spent all this time, money, energy and money building an atomic bomb, and the Americans have 5,000?' One atomic bomb?”

Hannity countered by noting that the Obama administration paid the Iranian government $150 billion to halt their weapon's program and yet "they continue to spin their centrifuges and we don't get to have inspectors that we want."

“If they're building a nuclear weapon," said Buchanan, "then the American intelligence agencies have misled us again, or have lied to us again. Get all three of those guys, heads of the CIA, DIA, and DNI and put them up before Sen. Corker's [Senate Intelligence] committee and say: Does Iran have a secret nuclear weapons program operating, and if so, when did it begin? Because you guys told us they didn't have one.”

Hannity then asked, “So you didn't watch Bibi Netanyahu's evidence and believe it today? Because I believed every word of it.”

In a May 1 presentation, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu detailed how Iran apparently lied about its nuclear weapon's program and deceived the international community. (YouTube)



Buchanan replied, "Bibi Netanyahu, with due respect, wants the United States to fight a war against Iran on Israel's behalf. I don't want my country getting into another war.... What are we going to do, rely on a press conference from Bibi Netanyahu to go to war?”

Hannity said, “I have more faith in Bibi Netanyahu than I do the mullahs in Iran…. You have to be pretty stupid to hand Iranian mullahs that are chanting death to your country $150 billion. It’s pretty dumb."

“It would be more stupid," replied Buchanan, "to be dragged into a war by Bibi Netanyahu because he’s putting Israel first.”