The World Had 30 Years of Israeli Restraint and Failed to Stop Iran

By Seth Mandel

Monday, June 16, 2025

 

Guess who said the following:

 

Iran prevents Palestinians [from agreeing] to stop terrorism. Iran encourages extreme Islamic movements in moderate Arab regimes to try to undermine the regimes that support peace. Iran is responsible, with the other extreme Islamic groups, for the setup of international terror.

 

And in addition, Iran tries to build military capabilities—conventional and nonconventional. As you know, Russia and China decided to sell nuclear power plants to Iran. I warn the world: The acquirement of these nuclear power plants by Iran can really bring about terrible developments, not only in the Middle East, I believe, [but] all over the world.

 

Allow me to say that this ugly wave of what I call Khomeinism with Khomeini over the Arab world, the Islamic world, backed by Iran, is the greatest danger to stability and tranquility and peace in the Middle East.

 

Perhaps the unpolished English is a dead giveaway, but this was not Benjamin Netanyahu. And it wasn’t recent. These words were spoken by Yitzhak Rabin in 1995, less than two years after signing the Oslo Accords and six months before he was felled by an assassin’s bullet. Bill Clinton sat at the dais with Rabin and spoke after him. It was to be the dawn of a new era of peace.

 

And for that peace to be realized, Iran had to be stopped.

 

That speech was given 30 years ago last month. Thirty years ago. There are few things more tedious than a public discourse full of “why didn’t they try diplomacy” and “this is all Bibi Netanyahu’s obsession.” Even Sen. Chris Coons, Democrat of Delaware and eminently reasonable foreign-policy mind, flirted with these absurdities on CNN on Friday:

 

Look, it’s hard to know the judgment of political leaders. If there’s one thing that Prime Minister Netanyahu has been relentlessly focused on during his long career in elected service in Israel, it’s the threat of Iran and his relentless attacks on, concerns about, denunciation of the Iranian nuclear program. I understand that, because Iran has repeatedly threatened to destroy Israel and has supported proxies throughout the region that have carried out attacks on Americans, on civilians, on other countries. But you’re right that the prime minister has other considerations, just like President Trump, who may want to distract from other developments. … So, it’s not unknown, either here in the United States or in the Middle East, for political figures to try and change the subject or to take bold or decisive action that may or may not be in their nation’s best interests merely to change the subject from politically inconvenient developments.

 

The complaint is that Bibi is obsessed with Iran but also wouldn’t be talking about Iran without some nefarious ulterior motive? Okay.

 

Fact is, Israel’s focus on Iran, beginning three decades ago, initiated a long period of diplomacy, buttressed by Israel’s credible threat of force. (That’s how diplomacy works.) After 30 years, we have learned that Israel was right about two things: that Iran was trying to obtain a nuclear weapon to supercharge its killing machine, and that Israel would take action if all else failed.

 

In 2005, months after taking the biggest steps toward peace with the Palestinians since Rabin in 1993, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon followed in Rabin’s footsteps by warning about those who intended to undermine the ability of Israelis and Palestinians to capitalize on the disengagement from Gaza.

 

“Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon today said Israel will never accept a situation where Iran has nuclear weapons,” reported Radio Free Europe/ Radio Liberty in December 2005. “Sharon said Israel needs to do everything possible to prevent such a situation, which he said would threaten stability in the Mideast. Sharon said he’s sure all diplomatic efforts to solve the problem would be exhausted before any other action against Iran would be made.”

 

Notice a pattern? Israeli leaders take steps for peace and then ask one thing of the West: to help prevent Iran from sabotaging the process before it can go any further.

 

In 2012, Shimon Peres—Israel’s “dreamer,” the only person as closely associated with the peace process as Rabin—was asked by CNN about Israel’s willingness to disrupt Iran’s nuclear program, even taking lethal action against those responsible for the program. Peres responded: “If you have enough information about a certain person which is a ticking clock that can explode a bomb that can endanger civilian life, clearly you have to prevent him from doing so.”

 

Meanwhile, plans for Iran’s nuclear program began back in the 1980s. These plans were put into action in the 1990s as Iran sought to build nuclear bombs within about a decade. Before that time was up, however, it’s illicit facilities were revealed and efforts were made to try to freeze the project. Iran ignored its diplomatic obligations and in 2005 was found to be noncompliant by the International Atomic Energy Agency. This happened again mere days ago. President Obama’s JCPOA was intended to delay Iran’s nuclear breakout beyond his presidency, but the deal itself foreclosed the possibility of reliable verification so mostly what it did was give Tehran relief from sanctions and enable it to set the Middle East on fire while still pursuing nuclear weapons.

 

In all those years, presidents of both parties engaged Iran diplomatically over its nuclear program. Such an offer of diplomacy remains on the table.

 

It is self-discrediting to ask “Why didn’t they try diplomacy?” It is self-discrediting to claim that this war is a result of Benjamin Netanyahu’s “obsession.” The record is crystal clear: Thirty years of restraint were rewarded with violence and subterfuge. And so those 30 years of restraint have come to a close.