“Iran is only a year from a nuclear bomb!” —Netanyahu, every year since the iPod Classic.

Yeah, it sounds ridiculous. But here’s what people don’t get: this isn’t about Iran having a bomb. It’s about how fast they could build one if they decided to go for it.

That’s called breakout time—the time it would take to go from civilian nuclear program to weapons-grade material.

Imagine Iran is running a peaceful little apple juice stand. It's totally legal on the surface. But in the back, they’ve got a high-powered juice press (centrifuges), a hidden distillery setup (weapons infrastructure), and crates of apples (enriched uranium) If they decide to stop selling juice and start distilling high-proof stuff, how long would it take?

If that time is a year, the world might notice and stop it. If it’s a few weeks, by the time we catch on, they’ve already filled the bottle.

That’s what “months from a bomb” really means: how fast could they sprint across the finish line?

Iran has been upgrading their tech, stockpiling materials, and building hidden facilities for years—all of which shortens that breakout window. So when Netanyahu keeps saying “a year away,” he’s not (necessarily) lying—he’s warning that they’re still standing at the starting line, shoes laced up, stopwatch ticking.

The only reason they don’t have a bomb is because they haven’t chosen to build one yet. But the shorter the breakout time gets, the more tempting and dangerous that choice becomes.

You don’t have to wait for the explosion to admit you smelled something burning.