Horror missile attacks between Israel and Iran cannot be dismissed as just another round of violence - Middle East conflict is worsening and the US missiles-and threats-diplomacy is failing10:49, 08 Jun 2026Updated 10:52, 08 Jun 2026An explosion of missile exchanges between Iran and Israel has set the Middle East off on another doom loop of violence increasingly difficult to reverse. Israel defied US President Donald Trump’s demands not to react to Iran’s initial medium ballistic missile attacks on Sunday, further creating tension between him and Benjamin Netanyahu. Instead of heeding Trump’s intervention Israel carried out air-strikes on western and central Iran after coming under fire across its northern flank in the first major attacks in two months.‌Dozens of Israeli fighter jets launched airstrikes on Iran’s defence systems and Tehran has warned of further attacks - all focused on Israeli strikes on Lebanon. It followed days of warnings from Tehran that airstrikes on Beirut would trigger an attack on northern Israel so it was keeping its word with Sunday’s attack. All of them ignored by Trump who dumbly treats Lebanon like a side-issue, when it is absolutely bound to the Iran war.‌‌At the centre of all of this is one crucial error Trump made when he set on this foolhardy operation on Iran - by launching a joint operation with Israel and ignoring Lebanon. The two militaries set off with converging ambitions, regime change, smashing Iran’s nuclear weapons programme and neutering Tehran’s military complex.There was even a now long-forgotten hint of helping Iran’s rebels when Trump told them ‘help is on the way,’ with a typical eye for the grotesquely insincere sound-bite moment. None of these aims have been achieved, despite Trump’s machine-gunning lies about destroying the Iranian military, and now their aims have diverged dramatically.‌Hezbollah is inseparable from the war with Iran because its existence is entirely focused on threatening Israel - so Netanyahu knows he has to do as much to damage it as possible. Iran is demanding any settlement to end the war with the US, including the re-opening of the Strait of Hormuz, includes a lasting peace settlement agreement on Lebanon.Trump is meanwhile increasingly desperate for an off-ramp to re-open Hormuz as it is now biting deep into the world economy and Tehran knows this. So now that the genie is out of the bottle and the latest round of strikes has shattered latest peace talks something has to be decided on Lebanon.‌And that means either all-out war on Iran and Hezbollah, which is still a possibility, and that will suck the Gulf States into the conflict. Or a compromise, giving Trump his humiliating off-ramp, a cessation of attacks on Lebanon, allowing Hezbollah to remain a threat and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. And the latter may only be forcible if the US decides to slow down or even stop military support of Israel, upon which Netanyahu relies.That is impossible to imagine but tension between Trump and Netanyahu, as predicted by the Mirror weeks ago, is growing by the day. Iran still has its medium range ballistic missiles and drones and maintains the upper-hand on the Strait of Hormuz.Article continues belowAnd Trump cannot stop his addiction to constant relentless and contradictory social media commentary and threatening outbursts, pointlessly exacerbating the situation. This every time further entrenches Tehran’s hardline and increasingly powerful IRGC in their position of not backing down.It may be a terrible, damaging, cruel and terrorism-exporting regime that murders its own people but it still needs careful and skillful handling. The US’s missile-and-threats diplomacy is failing and Trump and his ludicrously named Secretary of War Pete Hegseth are further nudging the region into becoming the Wild East rather than Trump's proclaimed vision of a peaceful, prospering part of the world.