It has long been his obsession. According to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the "existential threat" that looms over Israel is neither Palestinian nor Arab. It comes from Iran and its nuclear program. This obsession, which he has railed against since he first broke out on the political scene, is rooted in his ideological convictions, strategic analyses, personal history and, as always with Israel's longest-serving prime minister, his political maneuvers. To such an extent that one of his political rivals, former chief of the general staff Shaul Mofaz, who was born in Iran, said, in 2012, that Netanyahu was driven by "a messianic conviction to bomb Iran."

Meir Dagan, the head of Israel's Mossad intelligence agency between 2002 and 2010, argued, in 2015, that attacking Iran would risk inflicting harm on Israel's security strategy and accelerating Iran's race for nuclear weapons, given its persistent sense of being under threat. Yet such a pragmatic perspective on Iran has never interested Netanyahu. In his Manichean worldview, one characterized by a "clash of civilizations" between so-called "barbaric" radical Islamist regimes and the "Judeo-Christian civilization," with Israel as its spearhead, Iran has always represented the ideal enemy.

You have 81.5% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only.