Israel has long fought a shadow war with Iran while avoiding all-out conflict. Now Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is risking it all in pursuit of a conclusive victory.

Iran once ridiculed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as the boy who cried wolf for his constant public warnings about Tehran's nuclear programme, and his repeated threats to shut it down, one way or another.

Israel felt emboldened to attack because most of Iran’s allies in the region, such as the Houthis, Hezbollah, Hamas and other forces in Palestine, Syria and Iraq, who could hit Western targets, are at their lowest ebb, degraded by years of Israeli attacks. Such has never been the case before. And it certainly caught the Iranian regime off-guard.