The Country that Cried Wolf

Juan Cole points to the problem with lying your way into a war: When the justifications for the war turn out to be untrue, because the intelligence was fraudulent, even the most unlikely accusations coming from the least credible of sources will be believed by people who never would have if the invading country had told the truth:

[Saddam Hussein] reiterated charges that he had been beaten and tortured by the Americans, allegations that Washington had denied. He called the Bush administration congenital liars, pointing to their false claims that Iraq had had weapons of mass destruction or was linked to al-Qaeda terrorism. He said the denials that he had been mistreated were equally untrue. Saddam will be believed by a lot of Muslims, pointing to the disadvantage of this amateurish trial for the US.