The United States’ overnight attack could cause further escalation. To Israelis, it is already seen as a victory for Israel, and for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

For all the talk of the threat Iran posed to Israel and the wider region, Netanyahu never pulled the trigger on a major military operation. Instead, he authorized sporadic high-risk, high-reward operations from Israel’s Mossad spy agency, including the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists and the stealing of the country’s nuclear archive.