We attacked because or else Iran's nuclear programme would have been 'immune within months': Netanyahu

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that Israel and the US struck Iran because Tehran had restarted its nuclear programme and it would have gone “immune within months”.

The Prime Minister said that as Tehran was building new underground sites to shield its missile and nuclear programmes from attacks, an attack against Iran was urgently needed.

Netanyahu said, “They started building new sites, new places, underground bunkers that would make their ballistic missile programme and their atomic bomb programme immune within months. If no action was taken now, no action could be taken in the future."

Talking to US news channel Fox News, the Israeli PM said, "The reason that we had to act now is that after we hit their nuclear sites and their ballistic missile programme (in the 12-day war last year in June)... they started building new sites...underground bunkers that would make their ballistic missile programme and their atomic bomb programme immune within months."

He also said, “If no action was taken now, no action could be taken in the future."

Netanyahu had said that Israel had “achieved a historic victory” over Iran that would “abide for generations” and Trump claimed that the Iranian nuclear programme had been totally "obliterated".

Expressing doubts over these claims, critics said that Iran may have moved and secured the enriched uranium in some other location prior to the bombings.

In an interview with the news agency, Netanyahu denied that the US and Israel were engaging in an “endless war” against Iran, insisting that the operation would end quickly.

The Israeli PM said, "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 since its founding."

He asserted that this will be a quick and decisive action.

Arguing that the joint US and Israeli strikes would create the conditions for regime change in Iran, Netanyahu also said that "95 per cent" of the problems in the Middle East are generated by Iran, and that the fall of the regime would lead to a flood of peace deals between Israel and its Arab and Muslim neighbours.

Netanyahu debunked the accusations that Israel had dragged the US into the war.

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

(With PTI inputs)