When Israel launched its series of strikes against Iran last week, it also issued a number of dire warnings about the country’s nuclear program, suggesting Iran was fast approaching a point of no return in its quest to obtain nuclear weapons and that the strikes were necessary to preempt that outcome.

Years of intelligence collection, infiltration of Iran with commandos and weapons, and tracking of targeted commanders and scientists made the wide-ranging attacks possible.

Iran's strikes on Israel are self-defense and are "proportionate defensive operations directed exclusively at military objectives and associated infrastructure," Iran's U.N. Ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani told the U.