For more than three decades, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned the world of an imminent Iranian nuclear bomb. In 1992, as a member of the Knesset, he claimed Iran was just “three to five years away” from acquiring a nuclear weapon. By 2012, standing at the United Nations with a cartoonish diagram of a bomb, he dramatically drew a red line indicating Iran’s nearing capacity to enrich uranium for military use. In 2023, he doubled down: “We are attacking Iran’s path to nuclear weapons.” These warnings, now a ritual in Israeli rhetoric, have morphed from projection into justification for preemptive warfare.
On June 13, 2025, Israel launched a series of coordinated airstrikes—Operation Rising Lion—targeting over 100 locations inside Iran, including the Arak heavy-water nuclear reactor and facilities in Natanz and Bushehr. Netanyahu defended the strikes as a necessary act to halt Iran’s alleged sprint toward a nuclear bomb. “We will not allow the world’s most dangerous regime to arm itself with the world’s most dangerous weapon,” he declared. But the evidence backing this claim, as in the past, remains deeply contested.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the global authority on nuclear compliance, found no indication of active weaponization at the targeted sites. Following the Israeli strike, IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi confirmed, “The sites impacted were subject to IAEA monitoring. We had no evidence of deviation toward military use.” The Arak facility, a heavy-water reactor, was being used for peaceful energy development. Notably, Iran has remained a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), granting the IAEA oversight.
Tulsi Gabbard, the current U.S. Director of National Intelligence and former congresswoman, also pushed back against the narrative. In her March 2025 Senate testimony, she stated, “The intelligence community continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and that Supreme Leader Khamenei has not authorized a resumption of the program he suspended in 2003.” Gabbard added, “Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile is unprecedented for a non-nuclear state, but enrichment alone is not weaponization.”
The attack’s timing raised immediate questions. Strategically, Israel acted as Iran’s proxies across the region—particularly Hezbollah and militias in Iraq—were weakened by internal fragmentation and economic pressure. Domestically, Netanyahu faced intensifying political scrutiny following the October 2023 Hamas attacks and subsequent war in Gaza. The military action on Iran not only shifted public discourse but also allowed him to revive a decades-old image as Israel’s stalwart protector.
Yet this maneuver came without international legal backing. Under Article 2(4) of the UN Charter, the use of force against another state is prohibited unless it is in self-defense against an armed attack. Article 51 outlines the right to self-defense but only if an armed attack “occurs.” Israel’s justification—that Iran was on the verge of an attack—falls into the category of anticipatory or preventive self-defense, which is not recognized in international law.
The precedent of Israel’s 1981 strike on Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor, and its 2007 bombing of Syria’s al-Kibar site, are instructive. Both were unilateral strikes justified as preemptive actions against potential nuclear threats. In the case of Iraq, UN Security Council Resolution 487 condemned the attack. Yet, no such action followed the Syria strike due to geopolitical deadlock. Operation Rising Lion continues this pattern—military action without multilateral legal sanction, carried out in defiance of the international legal framework.
This all feels eerily familiar.
In 2003, the United States invaded Iraq, citing the existence of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) as a core rationale. American leaders, supported by faulty intelligence and widespread media amplification, claimed that Saddam Hussein was stockpiling chemical and nuclear arms. The invasion went ahead without explicit UN Security Council approval. Months later, no WMDs were found. The intelligence had been wrong—or deliberately manipulated. The human and geopolitical cost: over a million dead, a destabilized Middle East, and a generation of lost credibility for Western foreign policy.
The similarities between 2003 and 2025 are not just academic—they are damning. In both cases, a state acted on the basis of intelligence disputed by international watchdogs. In both, there was no imminent threat or active attack. In both, the justification for military action involved existential language—about rogue regimes, evil leaders, and weapons of mass annihilation. And in both, legal norms were ignored, sidelined by the will of power and politics.
Iran’s nuclear program, despite its opacity and gamesmanship, has not—according to both the IAEA and U.S. intelligence—crossed the threshold of weaponization. Israel’s strike destroyed facilities central to peaceful nuclear development, including a heavy-water reactor that could have eventually produced medical isotopes and civilian power. Far from halting a weaponization path, the strikes may now radicalize Iran’s approach, undermining moderates and empowering hardliners who call for withdrawal from the NPT.
The legal implications are as stark as the strategic ones. The UN Charter, the cornerstone of the modern international order, was crafted precisely to prevent wars based on suspicion or fear. Without proof of an imminent attack, unilateral military strikes are illegal. As with Iraq, the world once again faces the question: what happens when states ignore law to act on assumptions?
Meanwhile, the political dynamics in Washington are shifting. President Donald Trump, now in his second term, has so far resisted direct military involvement. He has revived his “America First” doctrine, emphasizing domestic priorities over foreign entanglements. In a recent rally, Trump stated, “We are not the world’s policeman. We don’t go to war unless America is directly attacked.”
Yet Netanyahu is clearly angling for American backing. Analysts believe Israel’s escalated military posture is designed in part to trigger U.S. involvement. However, under the U.S. Constitution, a president cannot declare war without congressional approval. Trump faces a divided Congress, with key members in both parties demanding evidence and restraint. For now, the administration has limited its support to rhetorical backing and intelligence sharing.
Will Trump take the bait? That remains the million-dollar question. His reluctance to commit American forces could signal a break from the neoconservative playbook of the early 2000s. But history has shown that presidential resolve can shift rapidly under pressure—especially if a future Iranian reprisal targets U.S. assets in the region.
If international law is to mean anything, it must be enforced impartially. Otherwise, it becomes not law, but rhetoric—a mask behind which power operates with impunity. Israel’s repeated claims of existential peril from Iran’s nuclear program may hold emotional and political weight, but without evidence, they echo the same manipulation that led the U.S. into Iraq.
Netanyahu’s legacy, then, may be bookended by two wars driven by manufactured threats. The first he encouraged; the second he led. In both cases, the world paid the price.
As we reflect on these events, we must ask ourselves: how many more times will we believe the wolf is at the door, only to discover it was never there? And how long can the world tolerate a system where might makes right, and truth is the first casualty of ambition?
