For all the talk of the threat Iran posed to Israel and the wider region, Netanyahu never pulled the trigger on a major military operation. Instead, he authorized sporadic high-risk, high-reward operations from Israel’s Mossad spy agency, including the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists and the stealing of the country’s nuclear archive.

In an address to the nation, President Donald Trump, speaking from the White House on June 21, said U.S. warplanes had struck three Iranian nuclear facilities.