Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said early Tuesday that strikes against Iran were "urgently necessary" because Tehran had begun constructing new underground bunkers designed to make its ballistic missile and nuclear weapons programs untouchable. The window, he said, was closing fast.

In an interview with Fox News, Netanyahu laid out the timeline in stark terms. After U.S. and Israeli forces hit Iran's nuclear sites and missile program in June 2025, Tehran immediately began rebuilding, this time deeper underground. The bunkers would have rendered both programs immune to future military action within months, The Times of Israel reported.

"If no action was taken now, no action could be taken in the future."

That single sentence is the strategic reality that drove everything that followed.

The negotiations that never had a chance

Before any strikes were launched, the Trump administration tried diplomacy. U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner were dispatched to hold talks with Iran. The mandate was sweeping: Tehran would agree to eliminate its missile program, cease support for proxies, eliminate its navy "so we can have freedom of the seas," and halt nuclear enrichment entirely.

What they found across the table was not a regime interested in compromise. It was a regime that wanted to brag.

Witkoff described what happened in the first round of talks this year. Both Iranian negotiators, unprompted and without hesitation, told the American delegation that Iran controlled 460 kilograms of 60% enriched uranium, enough material for 11 nuclear bombs. They weren't confessing. They were boasting.

"In that first meeting, both the Iranian negotiators said to us directly — with no shame — that they controlled 460 kilograms of 60% [enriched uranium] and that they're aware that could make 11 nuclear bombs."

Witkoff said the Iranians were proud they had evaded international oversight protocols to reach that threshold. They treated it as an achievement, not a bargaining chip. The Iranian delegation even claimed enrichment was "an inalienable right."

Witkoff's response was blunt. He told them the president felt the United States had "the inalienable right to stop you dead in your tracks."

After that exchange, Witkoff recalled turning to Kushner in disbelief.

"Jared and I just sort of looked at ourselves flummoxed, and said, 'We're really in for it now.'"

The talks continued for two more rounds, but Witkoff said it was clear by the end of the second meeting that a deal was impossible. The third meeting was, in his words, "the last college try." The Iranians wanted the Americans to report positivity back to Washington. Witkoff was having none of it: "It was not positive, that meeting."

Nearly a year of patience, then action

Vice President JD Vance, also speaking on Fox News, confirmed the administration spent nearly a year trying to negotiate with Iran before resorting to military options. He framed the decision as deliberate and strategic, not reactive.

"He saw that the Iranian regime was weakened, he knew that they were committed to getting on that brink of a nuclear weapon, and he decided to take action because he felt that was necessary in order to protect the nation's security."

Vance said the president's objective was clear and defined: Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon and must commit long-term to never rebuilding that capability. He acknowledged that Operation Midnight Hammer, launched at the end of Israel's 12-day war last June, set Tehran's program back substantially. But setting it back wasn't enough. What diplomacy needed to produce was, in Vance's words, a fundamental change in "mindset" from the Iranian regime.

That change never came. So the military option did.

Vance pushed back hard on the notion that the current operation would become an open-ended quagmire.

"There's just no way that Donald Trump is going to allow this country to get into a multiyear conflict with no clear end in sight and no clear objective."

The urgency behind the strikes

The operational details tell their own story. Operation Midnight Hammer targeted Tehran's three main nuclear facilities. Operation Epic Fury followed. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the U.S. launched Epic Fury in part because intelligence indicated Israel was going to carry out a preemptive strike on its own, and Tehran would have responded by targeting American assets in the region.

That's worth sitting with. The choice wasn't between action and peace. It was between coordinated action on American terms and a chaotic escalation triggered by Israeli self-defense.

Witkoff reiterated that Iran's uranium stockpile could have been converted to weapons-grade material within a week or 10 days. Netanyahu said the new underground sites would have made the entire program immune within months. Both timelines point to the same conclusion: waiting was not a neutral choice. Waiting was capitulation on an installment plan.

No 'endless war.'

Netanyahu addressed the "endless war" narrative directly, and he didn't mince words. He told Fox News viewers not to buy it.

"I hear people are telling you that you're going to have an endless war here — You're not going to have an endless war because… this terror regime in Iran is at its weakest point."

He called the operation "quick and decisive" and said that 95% of the problems in the Middle East are generated by Iran. He argued that U.S. and Israeli strikes would create the conditions for regime change, even as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Rubio said earlier Monday that regime change wasn't the stated goal. Netanyahu's position is that neutralizing Iran's military capabilities leads there naturally, whether or not anyone in Washington uses the phrase.

When asked whether Israel had dragged the United States into the conflict, Netanyahu laughed it off.

"That's ridiculous. Donald Trump is the strongest leader in the world. He does what he thinks is right for America. He does also what he thinks is right for future generations."

What Israeli security officials are watching

Not everyone in Jerusalem shares Netanyahu's confidence about the aftermath. According to a Channel 12 report, Israeli security officials warned cabinet ministers Monday night that:

• The ballistic missile threat "will not be destroyed" entirely
• Iran would be "trying to save what is possible from the nuclear sites."
• After the campaign, Tehran will "try to reuse what we blew up."

These warnings don't contradict the action case. They reinforce it. Iran's regime doesn't abandon its weapons ambitions after a setback. It digs deeper, builds more, and tries again. That's exactly what happened after June 2025. That's exactly why the current strikes were launched before the new bunkers were completed.

The clock in Iran was running

Step back and look at the full picture. In June 2025, the U.S. and Israel hit Iran's nuclear sites and missile program. Netanyahu declared a "historic victory" that would "abide for generations." Less than nine months later, he was back on television explaining why new strikes were urgently necessary because Iran had already started rebuilding underground.

Iran's negotiators sat across from American envoys and bragged about their uranium stockpile. They boasted about evading oversight. They demanded enrichment as a right. They treated diplomacy as a delay tactic while construction crews poured concrete on new bunkers.

This is the regime the last administration thought could be managed with a deal. This is the regime that a decade of strategic patience was supposed to moderate. Every month of inaction was a month of Iranian construction. Every round of talks was covered for centrifuges spinning and tunnelers digging.

The strikes didn't come because diplomacy failed. Diplomacy was never going to succeed with a regime that views nuclear weapons as destiny and negotiation as theater. The strikes came because the clock ran out on every other option, and the men in the room were honest enough to say so.