Netanyahu shows an illustration during his speech at the U.N. on Sept. 27, 2012. (Keith Bedford/Reuters)
During his speech before the United Nations General Assembly on Thursday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that the completion of Iran's nuclear enrichment program threatens the stability of the Middle East, Europe and the United States—and urged world leaders to draw a "red line" to prevent Iran from continuing on.
In a highly unusual move, Netanyahu wielded a prop to illustrate his point: He literally drew a red line across a poster that showed a cartoon of a bomb.
"Iran is 70 percent of the way there and ... well into the second stage," Netanyahu said while displaying the chart. "By next summer, at current enrichment rates, they will have finished the medium enrichment and moved on to the final stage. From there it is only a few more weeks before they have enriched enough for a bomb.
"Each day, that point is getting closer," he warned.
As you might expect, a few Twitter users mocked the display.
"Okay, it's official," The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg wrote. "Netanyahu has no idea what he's doing. He has just turned a serious issue into a joke."
Goldberg continued: "Netanyahu's bomb cartoon is the Middle East equivalent of Clint Eastwood's chair."
"Apparently Netanyahu took a chart-making course from Paul Ryan," the comedian Rob Delaney tweeted.
"I didn't realize nuclear bombs looked like the bombs from Super Mario," Buzzfeed's Andrew Kaczynski quipped.
"Netanyahu has reduced nuclear war diplomacy to cartoons and markers," Sam Stein tweeted.
Many Twitter users questioned the wisdom of bringing clip art to the U.N., while some referenced a Roadrunner comparison.
"Excuse me, Prime Minister Netanyahu?" Rex Huppke wrote. "Wile E. Coyote called. He wants his bomb back."
"From what I can tell," @AGFlores tweeted, "Iran is seeking 1950's cartoon bombs made by Acme."
"Internets: Quick!" Jodi Williams wrote on Twitter. "We need a photo mashup of the StringRay photobomb and #Netanyahu's bomb chart."