
By Crispian Balmer, Maayan Lubell, Michael Martina and Matt Spetalnick
Israel’s surprise attack on Iran had an obvious goal of sharply disrupting Tehran’s nuclear programme and lengthening the time it would need to develop an atomic weapon.
But the scale of the attacks, Israel’s choice of targets, and its politicians’ own words suggest another, longer-term ambition: toppling the regime itself.
The strikes early on Friday hit not just Iran’s nuclear facilities and missile factories but