“If not stopped, Iran could produce a nuclear weapon in a very short time.” In recent days Benjamin Netanyahu has been repeating this insistently. This is why the Israeli Prime Minister has decided to attack and bomb Tehran's arch-enemy . And he continues to reiterate it despite his line having been dismantled by the director of the Atomic Agency but also by US intelligence itself . The alarm over the now “imminent” availability of the atomic bomb by Iran appears, however, to be a real strategy of the Tel Aviv leader. Netanyahu, in fact, has been repeating it for 30 years, since 1995 when he was still only the leader of the opposition. A video that is circulating on social media these days reminds us of Netanyahu's obsession with Iran's nuclear weapons, and it lists some of his interviews and speeches on the subject over the years.

1995, 1996, 2006, 2012, 2015, 2018, 2025. All the times Netanyahu said Iran was weeks away from having a nuclear bomb

— The Great Scourge (@grande_scourge) June 19, 2025

“Iran will be able to produce nuclear bombs on its own, without importing anything, within three to five years ,” declared the then 45-year-old chairman of the Likud party in 1995. He reiterated it the following year when he was elected prime minister for the first time: “Ladies and gentlemen, time is running out ,” he insisted in 1996. Having returned to being only the leader of the opposition party (after Sharon left the Likud to found the new Kadima party), in 2006 he thundered again: “Iran is preparing to produce 25 atomic bombs a year. 250 bombs in a decade, ladies and gentlemen.”

Thirteen years ago, during an interview with IBTimes news, as Israeli prime minister he reiterated the concept and also spoke of the few months needed by Tehran to produce the device: “ They are very close. We are six months away from reaching about 90% of the enriched uranium for an atomic bomb”, he stated in 2012. Three years later the times are getting shorter and shorter: “Iran is very dangerous: we are just a few weeks away from obtaining the fissile material for an entire arsenal of nuclear bombs”, he declared in his speech at the United Nations Glass Palace in 2015.

And it doesn't stop. In 2018, in an interview with the US broadcaster Cnn, he recalls that the Iranians"have the means and the knowledge accumulated to build a bomb very quickly, if they wanted to do it". Thus, a few days ago, these same statements repeated for thirty years were the basis of the justification for the start of the war with Iran.