On October 9, 2023, merely two days after the deadliest assault Israel had ever faced, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered a pledge and a forecast: “We’re going to transform the Middle East.”
He proved to be correct. In the years that followed, Israel dismantled the leadership and military capabilities of Iran’s proxies Hamas and Hezbollah, helped lay the groundwork for the downfall of Bashar al-Assad’s Iran-aligned regime in Syria, and ultimately pushed the fighting directly to Tehran, culminating in joint military campaigns with the United States that crippled the Islamic Republic’s coveted nuclear program and took the life of its supreme leader.
