On probability – Alon Pinkas in Haaretz:

‘There is a growing probability, or at the very least a feasible scenario, that by February or March, Israel will launch a preemptive strike against Iran's nuclear facilities.
Obviously, any decision of this magnitude will be determined after Israel understands Washington's stance and policy, but Netanyahu is counting on an American green light without direct American involvement. He seems to believe that even if the efficacy of an Israeli attack is partial and the damage is limited, it's worth it.

Israel lacks the ability to undertake a sustained aerial campaign 2,000 kilometers away and doesn't possess the munitions to cause irreversible damage to many of Iran's fortified nuclear reactors and uranium-enrichment facilities. But according to Netanyahu, this is an opportune moment: Iran has been severely weakened geopolitically as a result of Hezbollah's military degrading, the fall of the Assad regime in Syria, a sagging Iranian economy including a crippling energy crisis, and the election of Donald Trump.
Netanyahu has wrongly predicted the end of Iran's nuclear program twice. In 2002, he recommended that the United States invade Iraq because this would "reverberate" to Iran, and in 2018 he helped convince Trump to unilaterally withdraw from the 2015 Iranian nuclear deal and apply "maximum pressure." Both failed.’

(…)

‘The Houthis have wide latitude, and they're using it, as Hezbollah did after October 7, 2023. They're more Iran's terror franchisees than subordinate organizations. In a way we're seeing a repeat of the false assumption in the United States during the Cold War that the Soviet Union controlled all the Communist parties around the world, from North Vietnam and North Korea, across to Italy and France, and down to Cuba and Nicaragua.’

(…)
‘The Houthis control the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, which leads into the Red Sea en route to the Suez Canal. That affects 10 percent of seaborne oil exports and 8 percent of liquefied natural gas from the Persian/Arab Gulf to Europe (more if you factor in sanctions on Russian oil) and 60 percent of China's exports to Europe.
This is hardly an exclusively Israeli problem. The United States and Britain both periodically attack Houthi strongholds, but that hasn't had a major impact on the group's ability or willingness to launch missiles at Israel. That requires an international effort – as does Iran – and that's what Israel needs to do, rather than publicly deliberate who it should attack and when it should do so.’

Read the article here.

In other words, the Houthis control China’s export to Europa.

If a major attack is announced months before the attack most probably it’s not going to happen. But Trump’s capriciousness is well-known. He might conclude that attacking Iran is the best way to get the Nobel Peace Prize two years later.

The autocrats and their delusions.