There are well known divisions and cleavages in Iranian society. If...

There are well known divisions and cleavages in Iranian society. If Israel had limited itself to hitting nuclear sites, military bases, and regime officials solely, they may have been able to navigate these divisions in a constructive manner. Instead, from the first day they decided to carry out massive attacks against civilians in urban areas, including central parts of Tehran. They carried these out evidently not caring greatly if they kill their targets, their families, or random neighbors and passers-by in the process. Accordingly, hundreds of people are already dead and many more wounded who had nothing to do with this situation and will be marked for life by these brazen actions.

Israeli officials meanwhile are boasting about “burning” the capital city of Iran with no sense of awareness of how Iranians and others may perceive that. They appear to be quite proud of specially bombing famous areas of Tehran and making them look the way that they have made Gaza City appear. This is sick and irrational behavior that doesn’t even comport with any identifiable political logic. It is rapidly earning them the undying hatred of a population that had previously been of mixed opinion, or even more polarized against their own government.

Israel only has one mode at this point which is eradication and supremacy. I highly doubt it’s possible to live in a region with such a country indefinitely or with people who are this far gone perceiving how their own actions are viewed by others. The lesson every other capable state should draw is to discard any prior notion of compromise and achieve the maximum deterrence possible at any cost, no less than it would have been necessary to contain and roll back Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, or any other of the radical genocidal states the world had been cursed to contend with in the past century.