The coordinated strikes on Iran launched by the United States and Israel in the early hours of Saturday morning formally reignited a conflict that had been simmering since last summer’s 12-day war. They targeted key command structures and killed senior figures, most notably Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei, who had been in power since 1989. Trump marked his demise with a post saying “one of the most evil people in history” was dead, adding: “This is not only justice for the people of Iran, but for all Great Americans.”

Israel has also published reports claiming that Mohammad Pakpour, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), defence minister Aziz Nasirzadeh and Admiral Ali Shamkhani, head of the defence council, have also been killed. In response, Iranian forces have fired missiles and drones at Israel, at US bases in the Gulf, Iraq and Jordan, and at some civilian targets across the Gulf. Events are moving quickly, but far from predictably.

An ebullient Donald Trump embarked on this attack casting it not as a limited action, but as a decisive campaign to eliminate what he called a longstanding threat to the United States, one that he argued previous US presidents had been unwilling to confront directly.

It followed rounds of regionally supported diplomacy aimed at a preliminary nuclear deal. But instead of allowing those efforts to mature Trump, perhaps swayed by Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and conservative hawks in his administration, chose to strike now, at what is widely seen as a moment of Iranian weakness. He immediately suggested that the Iranian people should now determine their own future, making it clear that Washington supports internal regime change, and reiterating that as he announced Khamenei’s death on Saturday night. “This is the........

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