On Iran, the choice was always between bad and worse

Israel’s attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities has been long in the making. The implacable and belligerent opposition by Islamists to a state of the Jews on fundamentalist grounds has made this attack an inevitability. Trump’s chaotic foreign policy and the shunning of the rule of law gave Netanyahu the space to fulfil his long-cherished dream.

What was less predictable was Trump’s decision to involve the US and to utilise B2 bombers to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities.

While it can be argued that Trump was deeply foolish to withdraw in 2018 from Obama’s hard-won agreement with the Ayatollahs to limit their striving for a nuclear weapon, it did not change their inability to ever settle for a compromise, an outlook fashioned by ideological absolutism and religious belief. It was this intransigence that was clearly a central factor in Trump’s decision to send in the B2s.