The Perennial Iran Nuclear Scare

For decades, the world has been six months away from Iran getting the bomb — but the bomb has yet to arrive.

Concept of a nuclear strike | Image by Shaplov Evgeny/Shutterstock

For decades, the world has been six months away from Iran getting the bomb — but the bomb has yet to arrive.

Since at least 1984, Western intelligence agencies, Israeli leaders, and American lawmakers have warned that Iran is just shy of developing nuclear weapons. The claim resurfaces every few years, with alarming headlines, intelligence leaks, and grave congressional warnings — but never with a confirmed warhead.

In 2014, The New York Times reported that U.S. intelligence officials believed Iran was “at least a year, perhaps five” away from a bomb. That same year, Sen. Bob Menendez warned that Iran was “literally weeks to months away.” In 2012, The Washington Post fact-checked Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s claim that Iran was just six months out and found Netanyahu to be “on the right track.” Those followed earlier alarms — and they continue today.

Netanyahu has sounded the Iran nuclear alarm since at least the early 1990s. Al Jazeera reported that in 1992, he told the Israeli Knesset that Iran was three to five years from a bomb. In his 1995 book Fighting Terrorism, he repeated the same prediction. By 2006, speaking to Glenn Beck on Fox News, Netanyahu warned, “If [the United States does not] act, it means that it will be the first time in the history of the world that a totally unstable, globally mad regime will have atomic bombs and the means to deliver them.”

But fears of Iranian nukes date even earlier. By 1984, British defense publication Jane’s Defence Weekly reported there were stories in the region indicating that Iran was actively pursuing nuclear weapons and could be within two years of acquiring them.

Iran is hardly alone in the long line of unmaterialized nuclear threats.

In recent years, concerns about Russia’s use of tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine have repeatedly dominated headlines. Then-President Joe Biden said the threat was “real” in July 2023. Russia Matters and The Moscow Times ran warnings in May of that year. The prior year, 2022, saw similarly dire predictions, including The Atlantic asking, “What If Russia Uses Nuclear Weapons in Ukraine?” and Politico quoting former NSC official Fiona Hill saying, “Yes, he would,” regarding Putin’s willingness to use nukes.

None of those threats came to pass.

There were also widespread fears about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction in the early 2000s, cited as a justification for the U.S. invasion. The weapons were never found. Another wave of panic gripped the West in the 2000s over so-called “suitcase nukes,” with reports suggesting rogue actors could smuggle portable ‘dirty bombs’ into major cities. These claims are now widely regarded as discredited.

Occasionally, American politicians on both sides of the aisle flirt with the idea of striking Iran for its leaders’ apparent intent to strike Israel with nuclear weapons or plans to develop nuclear weapon capabilities.

“If Iran were to launch a nuclear attack on Israel what would our response be?” then-Senator Clinton said in 2008. “I want the Iranians to know that if I’m the president, we will attack Iran. That’s what we will do. There is no safe haven.”

Presidential contender Sen. John McCain sang the words “bomb Iran” that same year, and his foreign policy disciple, Sen. Lindsey Graham, endorsed a similar idea in 2010.

Tucker Carlson recently took Senator Ted Cruz to task for his perceived hawkishness on Iran. However, in 2012, Carlson was quoted in the Atlantic as saying, “I do think… that Iran deserves to be annihilated. I think they’re lunatics. I think they’re evil.” He later clarified that he believed Iran should be annihilated but that it was not necessarily the U.S.’s duty to do it.

This is not to say the Iranian Ayatollah does not threaten Israel. He does. Frequently, and often, on X:

There is also some evidence that Iran’s leaders are authentically pursuing nuclear arms. Until 2003, the leaders of Iran openly pursued a nuclear weapons program. And some groups, such as Iran Watch, argue that the nuclear program then continued in another capacity, covertly. As recently as December 2024, representatives from Britain, France, and Germany warned the UN Security Council that there was no “credible civilian justification” for the uranium enrichment program Iran was pursuing at that time, per France 24.

However, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard testified on Capitol Hill in March that the Ayatollah had not re-authorized Iran’s nuclear weapons program. Following up, she indicated that Iranian leaders were becoming more comfortable discussing using nuclear weapons, and she confirmed that the government had increased the uranium stockpile.

Historically, American and Israeli defense and intelligence agencies have executed strikes against Iranian targets that were purportedly helping the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program. The Stuxnet cyber attack on Iranian centrifgues in the 2000s is just one example of an alleged joint effort from the Americans and Israelis to retard Iran’s supposed nuclear program, although neither nation’s leaders have claimed responsibility for the destruction.

As tensions boil in the Middle East, questions have surfaced about whether President Donald Trump and Gabbard are aligned on Iran. Gabbard moved to quash speculation Tuesday, telling reporters, “We are on the same page.” She maintained that her earlier assertion was in line with Trump’s recent comment that Iran is “very close” to a bomb.

“President Trump was saying the same thing that I said in my annual threat assessment,” Gabbard said. “Unfortunately, too many people in the media don’t care to actually read what I said.”

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