Israel is retaliating as we speak. I think I allowed the “experts” and their wishful thinking to affect my judgement. The “de-escalatory pressures” experts like Vlad Vexler talk about are all external: Yes, the region does not want a war, the US does not want a war, even Russia and China do not want a general war in the Middle East. However, Israel knows Iran played a war in organizing October 7th.
Even if Israel does not take credit, the Iranian public will know Israel carried out these strikes: Experts who claim Iran can avoid retaliating if Israel does not take responsiblity, as Dr. Alon Burnstein did earlier, are simply wrong.
Iran will respond with a similar missile attack to the last one—which means Iran will have about 80% of its military capability left.
We are back on the path of escalation. It may take a few more exchanges but I we have to consider a general war likely.
It didn't turn out that way; the "retaliation" was so feeble that Iran's rulers just pretend that it didn't happen. Israel is not a sovereign state, and Israel's supposedly governing officials should be explicit about this so that the Israelis and their friends are no longer deceived. Once this is made clear, their anger at the War Cabinet and especially at Netanyahu will fade, because this anger assumes that the War Cabinet and Netanyahu are making cowardly, bad choices. They are not making cowardly, bad choices; they are operating within the wiggle-room that the Empire allows them. What they should be blamed for is their deception of the Israelis and their friends, their false pretense of being the rulers of a sovereign state.
It's not cowardly to defer to the Empire while doing as much heel-dragging and side-stepping as possible (e. g. continuing to increase the Jewish population of Judaea and Samaria); non-deference to the relevant past Empires (the Babylonian, the Roman) resulted in near-destruction of the Jewish people two or three times (three times if the 70 AD and 135 AD rebellions are counted separately). They should just be honest about it. It's the deception that's infuriating.