There is a new and concerted effort from Israel's military and political leaders to frame the achievements of the Iran war as having changed the Middle East, even without the regime change in Tehran that Israel's prime minister has focused on.

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".