Click here: to donate by Credit Card
Or here: to donate by PayPal
Or by mail to: Free Republic, LLC - PO Box 9771 - Fresno, CA 93794
Thank you very much and God bless you.
Posted on 06/20/2025 9:14:52 PM PDT by Kazan
Since 1992, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned the world that Iran was on the verge of going nuclear. In June 2025, with Operation Rising Lion, he finally acted, launching the very war he’d been preparing for over three decades.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been vocal about the perceived threat of Iran’s nuclear program since the early 1990s, consistently framing it as an existential danger to Israel and advocating for military action to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
Below is a detailed timeline and analysis of how long Netanyahu has been pushing for strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities:
Timeline of Netanyahu’s Advocacy for Military Action Against Iran
1992: As a parliamentarian, Netanyahu warned the Israeli Knesset that Iran was “three to five years” away from developing nuclear weapons, urging an international coalition led by the U.S. to “uproot” the threat.
1995: In his book Fighting Terrorism, Netanyahu reiterated that Iran was three to five years from nuclear capability, emphasizing the need to stop it. This marked a continuation of his early warnings, though the timeline he provided had not materialized.
1996: During his first term as prime minister (1996–1999), Netanyahu addressed the U.S. Congress, warning that an Iranian nuclear weapon could have “catastrophic consequences” for Israel, the Middle East, and the world, claiming the deadline was “extremely close.”
2002–2012: As Iran’s nuclear program advanced, Netanyahu’s rhetoric intensified. In 2010, he told The Atlantic that Iran’s “messianic apocalyptic cult” controlling atomic bombs was a grave danger. In 2012, during closed talks, he claimed Iran was “a few months away” from nuclear capability. That same year, he delivered a widely publicized speech at the United Nations, using a cartoon bomb illustration to argue Iran could build a weapon within a year. However, leaked Israeli intelligence cables from 2012, reported by Al Jazeera, revealed that Israel’s own Mossad assessed Iran was not actively pursuing a nuclear weapon, contradicting Netanyahu’s public claims.
2015: Netanyahu addressed the U.S. Congress again, opposing the Obama administration’s Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), arguing it gave Iran a “pathway to the bomb.” His speech strained U.S.-Israel relations but aligned with his long-standing view that military action, not diplomacy, was the only way to stop Iran.
2018: After President Trump withdrew from the JCPOA, Netanyahu praised the decision, continuing to advocate for a hardline stance. Iran’s then-foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, mocked Netanyahu as “the boy who cried wolf” for his repeated warnings.
2023–2024: Following Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack, Netanyahu framed Iran as the “head of the octopus,” linking its nuclear ambitions to its support for proxy groups like Hamas and Hezbollah. He argued that the weakening of these proxies created a strategic window to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities.
2025: On June 13, 2025, Israel launched Operation Rising Lion, a large-scale attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, military leadership, and missile programs, targeting sites like Natanz and killing figures like Revolutionary Guards commander Gen. Hossein Salami. Netanyahu justified the strikes as necessary to prevent Iran from producing a nuclear weapon within “a year or a few months,” claiming intelligence showed Iran had enough material for nine to fifteen bombs.
Analysis of Duration and Motivations
Netanyahu’s advocacy for military action against Iran’s nuclear program spans over three decades, from 1992 to the execution of strikes in 2025. His warnings have consistently portrayed Iran as an existential threat, often comparing its leadership to the Nazis and invoking Holocaust imagery to underscore urgency. Critics, like those cited in The Intercept (2015), argue he exaggerated timelines, as his claims of Iran being “months away” from a bomb in 1992, 1995, 2002, 2009, and 2012 did not align with Israeli or U.S. intelligence assessments, which found no evidence of an active Iranian weapons program.
Several factors explain the longevity and intensity of Netanyahu’s stance:
Strategic Threat Perception: Netanyahu has long viewed a nuclear-armed Iran as Israel’s greatest existential threat, a belief rooted in Iran’s anti-Israel rhetoric since 1979 and its support for groups like Hezbollah and Hamas. His 2025 strikes were framed as preemptive, citing Iran’s stockpile of 400 kg of 60% enriched uranium, enough for multiple bombs if further enriched, per IAEA reports.
Political and Personal Legacy: Netanyahu, often called “Mr. Security,” has tied his political brand to protecting Israel. The 2023 Hamas attack damaged his reputation, and striking Iran in 2025 was seen as an attempt to restore his hawkish credentials and secure his legacy as Israel’s longest-serving prime minister.
Opposition to Diplomacy: Netanyahu opposed the 2015 JCPOA and expressed skepticism about Trump’s 2025 nuclear talks with Iran, fearing they would allow Iran to retain enrichment capabilities. His 2025 strikes, launched days before a scheduled sixth round of U.S.-Iran talks in Oman, may have aimed to derail negotiations he viewed as weak.
Strategic Window: The weakening of Iran’s proxies (Hamas in 2023, Hezbollah in 2024) and U.S. support under Trump, who included Israel in CENTCOM in 2020, created a favorable moment for action. Israeli media reported coordination with the U.S., with some suggesting Trump’s public opposition was a ruse to catch Iran off guard.
Why the 2025 Strikes?
The June 2025 strikes, dubbed Operation Rising Lion, mark the culmination of Netanyahu’s decades-long campaign.
Several sources suggest he acted when he did due to:
Intelligence Claims: Israeli officials claimed Iran was making “concrete progress” toward weaponization, though U.S. and IAEA assessments, as late as March 2025, found no evidence of an active weapons program.
Weakened Iranian Defenses: Israel’s prior strikes on Hezbollah and Hamas reduced Iran’s regional leverage, and the 2025 operation destroyed Iran’s air defenses, allowing Israeli jets to operate freely.
Trump’s Ambivalence: While Trump urged restraint in April and May 2025, his post-strike comments to The Wall Street Journal and Fox News suggest he knew of the plans and may have tacitly approved, despite public statements favoring diplomacy.
Click here: to donate by Credit Card
Or here: to donate by PayPal
Or by mail to: Free Republic, LLC - PO Box 9771 - Fresno, CA 93794
Thank you very much and God bless you.
Ben-Gvir and Karhi crack down on foreign press coverage of war damage in Israel
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/4324385/posts
Looks like they are preparing for an attempt at regime change in Iran.
This is so true. Remember about warnings that Israel gave years ago. Naturally, the warnings went ignored.
Yep, Israel is trying to keep a lid on the media coverage, but if you spend a little time looking online a lot of videos have been released that show the missiles that are getting through, and the damage that it's causing in Israel.
I don't think that most people expected the damage to be this bad.
Who exactly were they warning?
Interception rate is well over 80%, really good since most of the misses would never hit a military target. That a nation has an effective system to protect urban civilians is extraordinary, with a second layer of the best bunkers and training in the world.
The two major cities have better protection than the inner core of a US navy carrier group, if you cannot see that as remarkable, your not paying attention.
Good thing there was a president 45 years ago who made it an R&D priority for missile defense. If there would be 300 missile hits on Israel, their only response would be to make Tehran a glowing pile of cinders. What all the defenses have bought is time, time to counter with precision against military targets and 7 to 12 days of US navy repositioning time.
Sort of soft peddled the change in the IAEA assessments of IRANs program, they chose not to protect IRAN in June, and the UN knew certainly Israel would use the data point to go ape shit on IRAN, something changed.
We will someday get the signals intelligence that really started all this.
We do not have exact numbers, but it appears that Iran is using many more drones and cruise missiles than in the past.
They have less explosive power than high altitude missiles, but they are much harder to identify and track and shoot down because they fly at very low altitude.
In most cases, they can only be shot down by manned air craft.
What a huge steaming pile of propaganda-by-omission.
Speaking of 1992:
However, the most publicized incidents of radical Islamist activity in Latin America have not been linked to al-Qaeda but instead to the Lebanese Shi’ite Hezbollah, which is ideologically and politically close to Iran. These include the March 1992 bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina...
bkmk
“Yep, Israel is trying to keep a lid on the media coverage, but if you spend a little time looking online a lot of videos have been released that show the missiles that are getting through, and the damage that it’s causing in Israel.
I don’t think that most people expected the damage to be this bad.”
Israelis are used to this. That’s why they have bomb shelters all over the country.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.