Seems symbolic.
Lets Iran show they are striking back.
Allows Israel to shoot them down before they do much damage.
It means that Israel won’t escalate.
Bingo.
Israel should symbolically destroy every single military target in Iran.
“Seems symbolic.
Lets Iran show they are striking back.
Allows Israel to shoot them down before they do much damage.
It means that Israel won’t escalate.“
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I am hopeful that you are correct. Iran, kind of had to respond to what Israel did, but if they just launch a few dozen drones, and then call it a day, they keep their credibility with the anti-Israel crowd intact, without risking a huge escalation.
However, if it’s more than that, I would fully expect that Israel will launch dozens of cruise missiles and destroy a large part of a refinery complexes and their export facility at Kharg Island. That will largely destroy the Iranian economy, and quite possibly cause an internal revolt. I do not think that the Iranian leaders are unaware of this, which is why I remain hopeful that they are just symbolically hitting Israel. Of course, Israel also has to symbolically hit back at Iran. Perhaps they do so by hunting down some of the leaders of Hezbollah and ensuring that they have a meeting with their virgins. Time will tell.
I expect Israel will escalate and attack Iranian drone factories along with infrastructure in Iran to teach them a lesson. I would also expect Israel to target any vulnerable (not much) Iranian nuclear facilities.
The US has probably given Israel locations of drone factories that are helping Russia in its war with Ukraine. From a CIA perspective this will be a “two-fer.”