New Delhi, June 8 -- The phone call happened before the bombs fell.

that if Israel struck back at Iran, the retaliatory cycle that has defined Middle Eastern conflict for decades would simply resume. Trump, according to the official, believed he had succeeded. "He got Bibi to hold off for the time being," the official told reporters, speaking on condition of anonymity to describe the private exchange.

By early Monday morning, Israeli jets were striking targets in central and western Iran.

The strikes-on Iranian military radar installations, and later a petrochemical complex in Mahshahr in southwestern Iran-came in direct response to Iran's ballistic missile launches against northern Israel the previous evening, themselves a response to...