Neil Melvin provides his take on Israel's strikes on Iran

"While the immediate targets of Israel's attack on Iran are Tehran’s nuclear and military facilities, the action forms part of a wider regional strategy by the Netanyahu government that has been unfolding since the Hamas terrorist attacks of October 2023. Following the attacks, Israel has systematically sought to roll back Iran’s regional proxy forces through military operations in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen and through these actions to reshape the regional geopolitical balance in Israel's favour.

Iran's conventional forces and its developing nuclear capabilities remain the outstanding threat to Israel in its effort to redraw the Middle East balance of power. While Israel has clearly achieved tactical successes with its initial strikes, there will be questions about to what degree Israel acting on its own will be able to degrade Iranian military capacity to respond and whether it can inflict substantial damage on the nuclear programme, when Iran has been preparing for the possibility of such attacks for years and has taken significant measures to protect key facilities. This suggests that the strategic calculus behind Israel's operation may be as much political as military, and in particular is designed to undercut US-Iran negotiations on the nuclear programme and move the US into military confrontation with Tehran.

During his Middle East visit in May, President Donald Trump failed to visit Israel. The trip followed the administration’s decision to conclude a bilateral cease fire with the Houthis in Yemen without consulting Israel and highlights the recent divergence between the US and Israel on key elements of regional policy. Trump's decision to initiate direct talks with Iran has been strongly opposed by Israel, even while supported by the Gulf.

With Iran withdrawing from the next round of Iran-US nuclear talks that were due to take place in Oman on Sunday following the attack, the Israeli strikes now threaten to derail President’s Trump's regional policies. Indeed, a key element of Israel's military action is likely to be a calculation that this is the moment to reshape the political and diplomatic environment through escalation that will curtail the US diplomatic approach to Iran. This brings with it the central risk that such escalation will instead draw the US directly into the conflict, especially if Israel faces a significant direct Iranian retaliation, and further move the region toward a wider war."