Operations are defined by goals. If you want to invade or launch a special forces op into your enemy territory, you need a small and attainable goal. Not "eliminate all nuclear threats" but more like "clear this area of nuclear materiel" in any areas you consider suspect. Otherwise you end up deploying troops that never come home.

Israel's state government is absolutely filled to the brim with war hawks - but they're not stupid. The situation they want to contain is too large to fix with IDF ground forces, they necessarily have to involve US force structures to seriously challenge Iran. And even then, it feels likely that we'd be looking at an Afghan War situation where guerrilla combat absolutely shreds the modern forces the further they push in.

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mjburgess 9 hours ago | parent [-]

"they're not that stupid" has not been a good predictive theory of western foreign policy since the victorian era

	▲	bigyabai 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Look, I don't want to get pissy because your track-record in this comment chain is mostly on-point. Boots are about to deploy on Iranian soil, and it's going to be a deliberate bloodbath for the first few days. Israel is going to piss and moan until America sends over more assets and materiel, at which point we'll be firmly in WWIII territory. It's downright bad, and you're not at all hyperbolic to lay things out like this. ...but I will repeat myself - this is an attack of opportunity for Israel, not a desperate scramble to destroy nuclear assets. Israel's long-term goal is to become the unquestioned geopolitical power of the Levant, even outside America's auspices. They can do that by leveraging the dumb-as-a-brick administration to provoke Iran into a response, at which point they will fight until attrition forces them both to retreat. Now Israeli forces are the de-facto security guarantor in the region, and we already know they draw their borders however they like. Mind you, this isn't the last you'll hear about "Iran's nuclear program" - it hasn't outlived it's usefulness, quite yet. Israel will continue targeting them not until nuclear assets are destroyed, but until America perceives itself to be backed into a corner with no choice but to search Iran door-to-door for a hidden bomb. (Stretch Goal - +100 Brownie Points: get America to launch a tactical nuclear weapon on Iran and increase the escalation ladder beyond what any peer power can compete with.)