The sight of rockets hitting Tel Aviv on Tuesday evening was the clearest sign imaginable that the regional conflict so widely feared over the past year may have finally broken out.

This is the second Iranian airstrike on Israel in less than six months, although the last time the announcement was made several days ago. The much slower drones and cruise missiles arrived first, and the main target was a military base in the underpopulated Negev Desert.

This time the ballistic missiles arrived first after a 12-minute flight and the targets appeared to have included densely populated urban areas. Israeli officials were quoted in the local press as describing the attack as an Iranian declaration of war.

Even if there were no casualties, the fact that cities were attacked will be crucial to Israel's response. After Iran's attack in April, retaliation was largely performative. The only target hit in Iran was an air defense outpost at a military base near Isfahan.

After Israeli citizens were threatened so clearly on Tuesday evening, a much more comprehensive response can be expected from Benjamin Netanyahu. The options have already been developed and can be selected by the War Cabinet, and the target list is expected to be extensive. This could also include Iran's nuclear facilities.

On Tuesday, it was the White House that was the first to warn of Iran's impending missile launch, presumably with the aim of depriving the attack of its element of surprise and in the faint hope of deterring it. After that failed, the US pre-launch briefing to journalists had the political advantage of showing that Washington had at least not been taken by surprise.

For all the dangers this attack poses to the Middle East, it also threatens to have a significant impact on U.S. politics, five weeks before a knife-edge presidential election in which Donald Trump has sought to overturn Joe To represent the Biden-led government and Kamala Harris, who is unfortunately out of her depth on the world stage.

The US has failed for many months to negotiate a hostage deal for peace in Gaza, and its efforts with France to broker a ceasefire in Lebanon during last week's UN General Assembly also failed, to say the least. Israel's response came on Friday, shortly after Netanyahu addressed the United Nations from New York, with an airstrike that killed Hezbollah leader and Iran's leading partner in the region, Hassan Nasrallah. Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said Tuesday night's rocket attack was in retaliation for the death of Nasrallah and for the killing of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in late July while he was a guest in Tehran.

Since the Gaza war erupted on October 7 last year, Biden officials claim they have prevented the violence from becoming a regional conflict. This claim no longer has any weight.

After the latest Iranian missile attack on Israel in April, the government urged Israel to exercise restraint in its response and used the influence of U.S. air defense assistance to persuade Netanyahu to “claim victory” by shooting down almost all incoming projectiles. This time, the United States reportedly signaled to Tehran that it would not and could not exercise any restraining influence in the event of a second Iranian attack.

The forces of restraint in the Middle East are becoming weaker with each passing day. Politically, the Biden administration cannot be expected to tie Israel's hands in the face of an Iranian attack on Israeli cities. The Iranian regime (particularly the IRGC) is feeling pressure to show its regional proxies and allies, from Hezbollah to the Houthis in Yemen, that it is not a weakling but a regional force of substance, the leader of the “Axis of Resistance.” . “.

Meanwhile, Netanyahu has a freer hand. With Iranian missiles over Tel Aviv, it is much harder for Washington to influence his actions and much harder for the prime minister's opponents to call for his ouster.

Today, Netanyahu is also significantly closer to his long-standing goal: engaging the US in a war against Iran that will destroy its nuclear program, which is now close to being capable of producing a weapon following the collapse of the 2015 multilateral agreement, the JCPOA The program was limited.

Recent reports Tuesday night said the Iranian missiles caused minimal injuries but raised the specter of what could happen in the next few years: missiles 12 minutes from Israel carrying nuclear warheads.

Israel's wars of annihilation against its regional enemies, first Hamas and then Hezbollah, are bound to add weight to Iran hawks' arguments that only a nuclear weapon can make the country safe and strong. In turn, fears that these arguments will prevail in Tehran will fuel calls for pre-emptive war in Israel.

In such dangerous times, the region has historically hoped that Washington could contain and reverse the logic of escalation. But the man currently occupying the Oval Office is a lame-duck president who has been ignored to the point of humiliation in recent months by the United States' closest ally in the Middle East.

There have long been voices in the US defense apparatus calling for preventive action by the US against Iran's nuclear program. These will now increase to influence a president who has vowed to defend Israel against the Iranian threat.

Biden's administration has generally been cautious about military ventures abroad, and Harris is expected to take a similar path, with less sentimental attachment to Israel. But escalating violence in the Middle East will hurt their chances of succeeding Biden in the White House and bring closer the prospect of the return of the biggest wild card of all, Donald Trump.