It has been clear that there has been growing tension between Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump over the possibility that Israel would launch an attack on Iran.
Trump has been telling the Israeli leader that he doesn’t want him to do this now and to wait, while the US administration continues nuclear negotiations with the Iranians.
But the Israelis clearly thought that they had their opportunity to act.
They believe that the Iranians are as debilitated as they are going to be in the region after last year’s degradation of Hezbollah in Lebanon – that took away a huge deterrent factor from Israel.
Netanyahu felt that now was the time, even if the Americans don’t like it.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio released a brief statement soon after news of the military strikes broke, putting distance between the US and what he called “unilateral action” by their close ally.
“We are not involved in strikes against Iran and our top priority is protecting American forces in the region,” he said.
Rubio added that Israel had advised the US that it believed the attack on Iran was “necessary for its self-defence”.
For now, the White House is – publicly – separating itself from the military action, trying to signal they mean to stay out of this fight for the moment. We saw a similar dynamic last year when Israel widened the conflict in the region, while the US attempted to contain the fallout, help defend Israel, but crucially not to get dragged in itself.
In the hours before Thursday’s attacks, US officials were briefing that there would be no American support in the event of Israeli action, even going as far as to say they would not help with any aerial refuelling. That was meant for Tehran’s consumption.
It’s not yet clear how much of Rubio’s statement signalling American distance is tactical, to ward off retaliation against US bases in the region, as opposed to a sign of the rifts that have developed between Trump and Netanyahu in recent weeks.
His statement made no mention of the US supporting Israel in defending against Iranian counterstrikes; which the Americans inevitably will, but which it’s unusual not to see them mention publicly.
The Israelis said there was “full and complete coordination” with the Americans ahead of the attacks. The sentiment has not yet been echoed in Washington.
However, Rubio did issue a warning for the regime in Iran: “Let me be clear: Iran should not target U.S. interests or personnel.”
This may also play into the defence capability for Israel now, because if there is an Iranian counterstrike against the Israelis – and there have been sirens going off in Israel to wake the population up as it launched its attack on Iran – you will now almost certainly get a retaliatory action from the Iranians.
So it’s now a question of what the Americans do to help defend Israel.
Remember we saw that on two occasions last year, drawing in the US. The risk is that things can slip out of control very quickly.
It doesn’t feel like we have had any of the same sense of coordination from Israel’s allies that we did in the run up to some of those events last year. This has happened much more quickly and in a much more uncontrolled way.
The coming hours and days are absolutely critical.
