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For years, there have been mutterings, darkly whispered about if and when Israel would roll the dice, would attack Iran with a full, comprehensive assault. An attempt in one blow to knock out or at least slow the Islamic Republic's quest

for a nuclear bomb, one which the Netanyahu government says would all but guarantee an atomic

holocaust. Last night, those whisperers got their answer.

What? whisperers got their answer. What does Israel's attack on Iran mean?

Will it achieve its objectives?

And does it take us one step closer to midnight, a wider global confrontation?

Welcome to the newsagents. The news agents. Right, full disclosure here,

this is obviously a moving story in that liminal space between our recording this and you hearing it,

doubtless, there will have been many more developments. This is clearly going to run

and run. Israel itself has made that clear. So there is little point in us trying to be

rolling news. What we thought we could do, though, is give you the big picture and a primer as to

how we got here and what Israel is trying to achieve. Why this and why now? There is no one better

to do that than Mark Urban, a former

news night colleague of mine, but crucially, presenter of the new global podcast, The Crisis Room,

which examines the geopolitics, which defines our age. And after that, we're going to bring you

an extended interview with Zia Yusuf, the man who resigned from reform as chairman of the party,

criticizing it on the

barca only 72 hours later to return to the fold. It is a really interesting insight into exactly

what happened, but we couldn't do anything other than start with the news from Iran. First,

that conversation with Mark.

...