By In a calculated gamble that may reshape the region’s balance of power, Israel has launched a sweeping aerial assault on Iranian nuclear and military targets—an audacious move intended to cripple what Israeli officials warn was an imminent nuclear breakout by the Islamic Republic. The strikes, which began on June 18, 2025, were coordinated across multiple locations and marked one of the most consequential preemptive operations since the bombing of Iraq’s Osirak reactor in 1981.
They happened because Israel was running out of time.
According to veteran Israeli journalist David Horovitz in an op-ed published by The Times of Israel, the operation was timed to strike at the final stages of Iran’s nuclear assembly line. Drawing on classified intelligence briefings, Horovitz reports that Iran was mere weeks—or even days—away from constructing a deliverable nuclear weapon. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in a somber video address as the campaign began, declared that Iran had stockpiled enough enriched uranium for nine bombs and was within reach of weaponizing it. The Israel Defense Forces added that Tehran could enrich enough fissile material for 15 bombs “within days.”
These dire estimates clash with more cautious U.S. intelligence assessments, as reported by CNN, which suggest Iran is still two to three years away from a deployable nuclear arsenal and has not made the political decision to build one. Horovitz, however, rejects such conclusions as dangerously naïve, citing Iran’s enrichment of uranium to 83.7% at the Fordo facility, its development of a nuclear detonation system, and its possession of long-range missiles—components that, if assembled, could have yielded a bomb in less than a week.
The Israeli strikes focused on strategic sites: the Natanz and Isfahan nuclear facilities, underground storage depots, missile factories, air defense nodes, and even Iran’s digital and paper nuclear archives. Military officials also confirmed that a crucial element of the campaign involved eliminating scientific personnel. Fourteen senior Iranian nuclear experts—figures Israel regards as irreplaceable—were reportedly killed. Their deaths, Israeli intelligence believes, will delay any nuclear reconstruction by years, not months, given the specialized knowledge and institutional memory they carried.
Horovitz’s sources indicated the mission extended beyond nonproliferation. The IDF claims to have uncovered and partially thwarted a chilling Iranian war doctrine codenamed “The Destruction of Israel Plan”—a strategy reportedly aimed at coordinating a multifront invasion using Iranian proxies in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Gaza. Whether Israel’s strikes have derailed that campaign remains uncertain, but the operation’s ambition is clear: to neutralize not just Iran’s nuclear capability but its capacity for regional hegemony.
In Netanyahu’s telling, the airstrikes are a defense of civilization itself—a claim likely to be met with applause in Jerusalem and skepticism in Washington. But as Israeli jets return to base and the smoke settles over Iran’s shattered infrastructure, the world is left to ask: has Israel bought time—or lit the fuse?
President Trump has said that he will be making a decision to bomb Iran, after their refusal to come to the negotiating table, within two weeks.
