Israel did not have a realistic plan for regime change when it attacked Iran, multiple Israeli security sources have said, with expectations that airstrikes could lead to a popular uprising having been driven by “wishful thinking” rather than hard intelligence.
Iran has survived nearly two weeks of bombing raids and the assassination of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and Trump is publicly contemplating ending the increasingly costly war.
If Iran’s new leadership keeps its grip on power, the long-term measure of the success of the conflict may hang on the fate of 440kg of enriched uranium which was buried under a mountain by US strikes last June, former and serving Israeli defence and intelligence sources said. Enough for more than 10 nuclear warheads, Iran could use it to hasten the construction of a weapon if the material remains in the country.
I don’t think anyone here is celebrating bombing or war. Military action is always a terrible outcome.
The concern many people have is what happens if nothing is done and WHEN Iran eventually acquires nuclear weapons. Once a regime that already sponsors militant groups and represses its own population has nuclear-capable warheads, the ability to prevent escalation becomes far more limited.
At that point, the world isn’t choosing between diplomacy and intervention anymore, it’s choosing between living with a nuclear-armed regime like that or risking a much larger conflict later. That’s the dilemma people are talking about.
To be fair I saw a couple of cars honking and flying the Persian flag with the lion recently celebrating that the regime that displaced them from their ancestral home may be coming down and hoping for freedom.
The nuclear threat of Iran also exists, but isn’t really relevant to my perception of the war.