NETANYAHU STARTED THE WAR, BUT CAN HE END IT?

To think that Israel would be able to humiliate Tehran into submission is a colossal miscalculation

- BY OSAMA AL SHARIF | Special to Gulf News

Israel is at war once more. The unprovoked blitzkrieg of Iran's nuclear and missile sites, which began on Friday, is something that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has wanted and planned for many years. This time, he received the green light from US President Donald Trump, who, until a day before, had said that he wanted to give the US-Iran nuclear talks a chance and had urged Netanyahu not to derail them.

It turned out to be a ruse. Israel's wide-ranging attack on Iran would not have happened without tacit US knowledge and approval. But what began as a pre-emptive strike, as Israel called it, could soon devolve into a regional war that could drag on and endanger the stability of the entire region and the world.

The strike had stunned Iran. It took out the upper echelon of the Islamic Republic's military and intelligence leaders. Israel assassinated at least eight of Iran's top nuclear scientists. The damage to Iran's most strategic nuclear plants, research centres, and uranium enrichment facilities has been extensive. The entire nuclear programme has been degraded, and it would take years for Iran to rebuild it.