FYI, here is a great article which sums up the results of the recent Israel-Iran war, making some very important and fairly obvious points that I missed by looking too much at the trees instead of the forest:
In the End, Everyone Hated the Iranian Theocracy
The main point is:
“The new reality is that either Israel or the U.S. — if they keep their earned confidence within proper limits — can now ensure a non-nuclear Iran by easily blowing up its costly nuclear program as often as it is rebuilt.”
And the same goes for Hamas and Hezbollah and Syria if they want to rebuild. Not only has almost everything that Iran built up since the 80’s been destroyed or severely degraded, the lack of all that stuff means that Israel can operate pretty freely to blow up any new stuff up if it chooses. If Iran or Gaza flares up in the future, we no longer have to worry about 150,000 rockets and missiles being shot at us from Hezbollah. And if Hezbollah makes trouble we don’t have to worry about rockets and missiles from Iran and Gaza, etc.
I think that is really huge. Israel got into the current war because, in the past, we didn’t have the will to deal properly with Gaza, Hezbollah and/or Iran — we were deterred by the massive rocket and missile inventories of all three. Now the other side is deterred and significantly disarmed, so we have much more of a free hand to hit them when we want, as we are still doing in Lebanon and Syria (and possibly Iran), despite ceasefires.
The other side surely dreams of rebuilding militarily. That will probably take a decade or two, at great expense, and whatever will be rebuilt could be targeted by Israel for destruction at any time. I would have to think the other side is thinking, “Is it worth it?”