As hopes of regime change in Iran fade, Netanyahu faces political test

Israeli leaders are framing the bombing campaign as having transformed the Middle East in their favour as pressure to end the conflict builds.

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Benjamin Netanyahu has spent decades preparing for this showdown with Iran; his long political career is anchored in his vow to defend Israel against its Iranian nemesis.

Having seized the chance to wage war directly on the regime, alongside the world's most powerful military, his rhetoric around the war has been extravagant, describing it as "a fateful campaign for our very existence".

The Israeli military's chief of staff has called it "an operation to secure our existence and our future in the land of our forefathers for generations to come".

One of Netanyahu's former national security advisers has described it as "a golden opportunity to change the direction of the whole Middle East".