Peter Eisner, former deputy foreign editor of The Washington Post, is co-author with Michael D'Antonio of "The Shadow President: The Truth About Mike Pence." The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author. View more opinion articles on CNN.

(CNN) Faced as we are with the possibility that the United States might be drawn into an unprovoked war with Iran, Americans should examine the past behavior of national security adviser John Robert Bolton, the would-be architect of such a war.

Bolton is not only a longtime proponent of regime change in Iran, he was also a key player prior to the 2003 Iraq War in the production of trumped-up charges that Saddam Hussein was preparing to produce nuclear weapons.

Peter Eisner

Even 16 years after the start of the war, some manage to preserve the false narrative that the CIA was the source of bad intelligence about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. In fact, as my colleague Knut Royce and I found in our book, "The Italian Letter," the CIA and other US intelligence analysts had cast doubt on the notion promoted by Bolton, then Vice President Dick Cheney and others in the administration that Iraq had sought to buy yellowcake uranium from the African nation of Niger -- an assertion made in intelligence provided to the US that was later found to have been falsified. Nevertheless, with the connivance of Cheney and Bolton, President George W. Bush and his administration frightened Americans about the dangers of a mushroom cloud if no action was taken.

A generation later, Bolton is wielding cynical and questionable rhetoric against Iran, which he has had in his sights along with Iraq. He told Israeli officials in 2003 that the US would also confront threats from Iran, Syria, and North Korea. Earlier this month, Bolton announced that an aircraft carrier and a bomber task force were en route to the Middle East because of unspecified "troubling and escalatory indications and warnings" that Iran was considering offensive action against the United States. The warning was greeted with skepticism, as a Democratic congressman accused a Republican senator of hyping it up.

That was also the case in 2003 when Bolton, as undersecretary for arms control and international security at the State Department, disputed Iraq's 12,000-page declaration to the UN that it had no weapons of mass destruction.