Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called the agreement a ''historical mistake'', has vowed to oppose it and if necessary use military force to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. While Netanyahu's threat has to be taken seriously, as he has bipartisan support in the US Congress and as the Israeli lobby continues to remain alarmingly active around the world, more specifically in Washington, the truth is that Israel has lost out badly.

Netanyahu must know that all his efforts to keep Iran in isolation and under intense pressure of international sanctions have not paid off. The new Iranian government under moderate-reformist President Hassan Rouhani has checkmated him diplomatically on a global scale. Should he carry out his military threat, it will not only have dire consequences for Israel, but also for the entire region.

By concluding the interim agreement, which stands a good chance of leading to a full resolution of Iran's nuclear issue, Tehran has proved that it does not have a secret military nuclear program. It has also signalled a strong willingness to go the extra mile to put behind it the long-running enmity that has underlined its relations with Washington since the Iranian revolution of 1978-79 that toppled the Shah's pro-Western regime and replaced it with Ayatollah Khomeini's Islamic government, with an anti-US and anti-Israeli posture. In this, for the first time the Iranian powerful supreme religious and political leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and the country's elected leader, President Rouhani, are singing from the same song sheet, exhibiting a degree of leadership unity that Iran has not experienced since Khomeini's death in 1989.

The Iranian leadership is now set on a course of constructive engagement with the outside world, with a clear goal of ending Iran's international isolation, reforming its economy and improving the living conditions of a majority of its citizens. It has signalled a departure from the hardline policies pursued by Rouhani's predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmedinejad. Rouhani and his very deft Foreign Minister Javad Zarif have even taken to Twitter to send messages to the Jewish people around the world to congratulate them on their new year. They have included Israeli citizens in this.

It is now in Israel's interests to back the interim nuclear deal and capitalise not only on that, but also on the new goodwill shown by the Iranian leadership towards the Jewish people to integrate Israel more into the region and world system.

It may find it very counterproductive to continue its old policies of the use of force and colonial-settler occupation of the Palestinian lands to ensure its viability and security. It is time for Netanyahu to join forces with the Obama administration and extend a hand of friendship to Iran and negotiate in good faith with the Palestinians for a lasting settlement based on the internationally backed ''two-state solution''. Its policy of standing above rather than being a part of the region has not enhanced its security.

If anything it has made it more vulnerable to increased domestic difficulties and foreign policy complications. Its militarist and territorial expansionist attitudes have helped the Palestinian cause to the extent that a great majority of the United Nations' member states have increasingly sided with the Palestinian cause, as was demonstrated in last year's vote of the UN General Assembly in supporting the elevation of Palestine to a non-member state.

The goal of boxing in Iran as the main enemy can no longer work. It is the most resourceful state in human and material as well as geo-strategic terms in the region. The US and its European allies have come to recognise this. The factor of mutual need between Washington and Tehran to help one another is real.

Tehran requires US assistance to fix its broken economy and end the sanctions against it. And Washington needs Iranian help to boost its declining influence in the Middle East and to play an effective role in helping to stabilise the region, given the leverage that Iran has in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Afghanistan.

A US-Iranian rapprochement now cannot be ruled out.

The regional countries, not only Israel, but also some of the Gulf Arab states, more importantly Saudi Arabia, which have also voiced serious concerns about the nuclear deal and Iran's growing influence, may find themselves with little choice but to embrace Iran as an important player at the regional and international level.

Israel has the military might, including nuclear bombs, and the Gulf Arab states have substantial conventional military forces. Iran has the nuclear technology, a formidable military machine, and some important national and sub-national allies that cannot allow any state to emerge victorious from a military confrontation if it is ignited in the region.

An Israeli attack will not now receive the support of the world powers which have signed the interim nuclear agreement with Iran.

As such, it would not be the agreement that would constitute a huge diplomatic mistake, but rather Israeli action that could bring a military disaster.