President Trump spent the first months of his term holding back Israel’s push for an assault on Iran’s nuclear program. With the war underway, his posture has gyrated as he weighs sending in the U.S.

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.

After battling Iran’s allies across the region following Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack, Netanyahu has turned his attention to what he describes as the “head of the octopus,” with an unprecedented and open-ended military offensive against Iran and its nuclear program .