The ground invasion hasn't started yet, the US is supplying israel, and you can see my other comment.

I'd be arguing first that the operation failed, and has made no meaningful impact on the mountain and esp. the nuclear facilities over 100m under granite.

Generous estimates place relevant bomb capacity in the US at 100, though I believe only ~1/3 of that is confirmed. Reports say ~10 were used. So, speculatively, the US has used 25% of its capacity to bust deep fortifications -- and, imv, failed to make a dent.

Credible estimates I'm aware of talk about dozens of bombs (per similar deep fortification), seriously depleting US capacity. It's unlikely the US would be willing to use up more than 50% of its bombing capacity here -- since a very large number of bombs are required for deep fortifications of this kind.

ie., US capacity is about "destroying two mountains", and it really needs at least to retain capacity to destroy one.

A well-designed nuke could take out the mountain, that's really the best air-supplied shot at taking the thing out.

Either way, none of this can be confirmed without ground forces. So one wonders if at least some of this theatre is to provoke iran enough to react in a way that justifies a ground invasion.

To your point, yes, china would absolutely love the US to degrade as much capacity as it possibly can. One images, even, they'd spin up a nuclear programme in iran very quickly again, just to try to drag the US back in. The US has done much worse.

China's geostrategic goal at the moment is stamp on the rope-pins around the US elephant: ukraine, iran, israel, and so on. Have the US blow as much as possible of its rapidly depleting military arsenal everywhere but around china.

Trump was the first president to really take this problem seriously, it's a little unfortunate that he's found himself in the same trap as every US president for the last 25 years.

Neither you or I, and esp. not the media, have any access to facts on the ground. All photographs or videos you have seen have been placed there for you to see them.

All we can work backwards from are the most reliable facts we have before the war, about capabilities on the ground. We know the rough size of the iranian missile programme, of the country, economic, various military assets and similar.

We can work backwards from this to ask, "what would we be able to see had Israel achieved its claim re iran" -- and we're talking extraordinary levels of destruction in iran, across the country, and so on. We don't have any evidence of operations of that scale even taking place, let alone having been successful.

It is most likely, at the moment, that at least some alleged air force victories by israel are actual missiles they've issued from neighbouring states on the land.

However, either way, all of this is speculation. What can be stated with near certainty is that any picture presented in the media is an extremely careful creation of the propaganda arms of our states, and not a credible military briefing.

Our only access to reliable inferences is purely rational and hypothetical: what are X's aims, what are their claims, what are they claimed strategies, what are their capabilities and so on.. and then what would we see *if*...

What if they hit US bases using 'plausibly deniable' cutouts?

The Glorious Revolutionary Militia of country X, using Iranian built and supplied drones or missiles, blows up young American soldiers in a country half the electorate didn't even know there was a presence in. Iran disclaims all involvement, but says they sympathise with the legitimate frustration of the locals. Do you think the United States gets involved in a hot war against Iran based on that?

Remember the Beirut truck bombings. The biggest single day US Marine loss of life since Iwo Jima. Reagan (and Mitterand) immediately says there will be no withdrawal. They shoot a lot of artillery in the general direction of Hezbollah from a boat, then immediately withdraw all troops.

> Most of the people do not support the government.

You're implying that a foreign power bombing Iran would make the people less likely to support their government. Do you have justification for that?

The power delta between The United Stated and Iran is lower than any of our other engagements since WW2, and look at how many resources were spent for questionable outcomes.