Iran–Israel war

Jordan? Idk about that More on reddit.com

I'm going to put aside the moral rightness of whether Israel is justified in attacking Iran. Most people likely believe that Israel is either justified or that they're morally bankrupt, so in either case the rightness or wrongness of the decision wouldn't impact the Israeli choice in the matter. Instead let's focus on whether or not it's a good strategic decision. First, let's look at the objectives of the strikes and whether they were achieved. Decapitation for the Iranian military leadership Astonishingly successful on a scale that isn't really getting as much attention as it should. The Iranian military is extremely centralized to keep most of the control concentrated in those loyal to the Supreme Leader. Israel just assassinated the commander in chief of the military AND his deputy, the chief of the revolutionary guard, and the head of Iranian air defense. I really can't emphasize enough the level of institutional knowledge the Iranians just lost and the chaos that replacing it is going to entail. Just to give a concept: imagine that the US national guard was a unified force across all the states with its own command structure entirely separate from the joint chiefs of staff. Now imagine a drone killed the joint chiefs and their replacement wasn't a general from the army or Marines, but the head of the national guard. That's basically what replacing Mohammad Bagheri with Abdolrahim Mousavi is like. The Iranian military is about to go through a fundamental reshuffling and power shift. Dismantle the Iranian nuclear program It's still too soon to tell, but I'm doubtful. Israel claimed to "significantly damage" the underground facilities at Natanz, but so far that's been unconfirmed by any other reporting and would have been quite the accomplishment considering it is buried in a mountainside. I think it's more likely that this was a mild setback in Iran's enrichment process but is likely to spark Iran to pursue actual weapons grade uranium rather than stockpiling 60% enriched material. That puts Israel in an EXTREMELY dangerous position for the next month or so. Iran is likely to devote all of its efforts to constructing a usable nuclear weapon before Israel can finish destroying its enrichment facilities, and will likely succeed. At that point, you have a difficult to predict and shifting military leadership in possession of a nuclear weapon with every incentive to use it before Israel can launch follow-up strikes to destroy it. It's a "use it or lose it" incentive structure that drastically increases the chance of a nuclear exchange. Let's say you're part of an Israeli military planning meeting discussing the airstrikes. An analyst tells you "if everything goes exactly to plan, there is a 5% chance that this time next month Tel Aviv will disappear in a mushroom cloud, but in exchange we will cripple the Iranian command structure for the next several years. I certainly wouldn't accept that risk, especially when as you said the Iranian ability to project power in the region has drastically diminished. There would need to be some external incentive to strike now, rather than last month or next year. I would argue that these strikes are NOT directed at regime change within Iran, but rather were intended to derail the American/Iranian nuclear talks or were associated with the attempt on Thursday to dissolve the parliament and call new elections. I'm not sure if that changes your view or not, but I hope it puts it in a different light. More on reddit.com

In the end, Hezbollah did nothing today. Iran spent billions for 20 years to make it (until last year) the strongest paramilitary organization in the world and keep it ready as a deterrent in case Israel attacks, and when that moment finally comes, they are so weakened that they do not even intervene. More on reddit.com

Seems like Israel is trying not to harm the people in Iran in hopes of a revolution. Bibi made an appeal to the people of Iran that he was targeting the regime and not them. It also appears Israel is holding off on destroying the oil sector because it doesn't want to piss off China, which is a large consumer of Iranian oil. Although. I saw a report recently that an Iranian oil field may have been bombed. More on reddit.com