After years of threats and posturing, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has finally backed his rhetoric and launched a large-scale military assault against Iran. Waves of Israeli air strikes have targeted the Islamic republic’s nuclear programme — striking Natanz, one of its main uranium enrichment plants — and its missile factories, and killed two top military commanders.

The veteran Israeli leader says his goal is to prevent the regime acquiring nuclear weapons, which Israel has long considered an existential threat. But by launching such a devastating assault on Iran he is igniting the full-blown war the world has feared since Hamas’s horrific October 7 2023 attack triggered regional hostilities.

He is gambling with the fate of the Middle East when the focus should be on US diplomatic efforts to secure a deal with Iran to curb its nuclear activities. But Netanyahu has long sought military action over diplomacy. It is difficult to see how the indirect talks between Washington and Tehran survive.