The … likeliest option is the most dangerous. Here, Iran will play it safe, keeping to the letter if not the spirit of the agreement, while waiting for any restrictions on it to expire in a decade. While doing this, Iran will make a bomb likelier by improving its technological know-how. Meanwhile it will continue to sponsor terrorism and back murderous regimes such as Bashar al-Assad’s in Syria, while calling for the destruction of Israel.

The deal and the lifting of sanctions on Tehran will pour more than $100 billion into Iran. Even a fraction of that sum will triple the budgets of terrorists such as Assad, Hezbollah and Hamas. Israel will have to stay vigilant and maintain its capacity to counter Iran’s activities.

America and its European allies should also remember a lesson Israel learnt long ago. Taking out a nuclear programme doesn’t equate to war. The US Air Force and Nato possess the capacity to strike Iran’s nuclear infrastructure with devastating power, while simultaneously deterring Iran’s leadership from escalating further. The irony is that the more this strike capacity becomes credible, the less chance it will ever have to be used.

Major General Amos Yadlin, chief of Israeli military intelligence from 2006 to 2010, is director of the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University

Read the article in full at The Times.