Iran–Israel war

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

Israel has said its attacks on Tehran are a response to Iran’s enrichment of uranium to near weapons-grade levels. This week the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) declared Iran in breach of its non-proliferation obligations for the first time due to Tehran’s unwillingness to disclose information about its nuclear stockpile. According to the UN watchdog, Tehran is making rapid progress towards building a nuclear bomb, enriching enough uranium to 60 per cent for nine atomic weapons. The Israeli strikes do not appear to have targeted Iran’s nuclear infrastructure. Early indications have suggested that Israel attempted to assassinate senior figures in the Iranian regime — similar to the dismantling of Hezbollah, the Shia militia, in Lebanon last year, a process that started with the pager attacks in September. Iran’s two main enrichment facilities are buried so deeply into the country’s mountains that it would prove challenging for the Israeli military to destroy them. To do that, Israel would need American support. 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

Dictatorships developing nukes are bad for everyone. More on reddit.com