'An Offer Trump Can't Refuse'
(TPM) "I’m seeing a lot of articles about Trump’s turn on Iran, how it’s in response to pressure from Israel, his evolving views. I think these are all either overblown or irrelevant. As I noted earlier, what’s driving Trump here is the hunger to get in on a 'win.' It might be best to see it as a typical Trumpian branding exercise. Israel has got a product ready to go to market and they’ve offered Trump the opportunity to slap the Trump name on it. But even beyond all that there’s something more. The U.S. has wanted to get rid of the Iranian nuclear program for a very long time. We’ve used coercive sanctions. We’ve engaged in espionage and sabotage. Barack Obama spent a huge amount of time putting together a diplomatic agreement to restrict it."
"What has always kept the U.S. at bay are the risks involved in ending the program or shattering its progress by force. Big strategic bombers are vulnerable. They have to make multiple runs to drop bombs that will tear into the side of a mountain. There was Hezbollah, the various Iranian proxies in Iraq, the Assad regime in Syria, Hamas which had limited capacities but could wreak havoc in Israel. Hezbollah and Hamas have been shattered in terms of offensive capacity. The Syrian regime is gone. Now Israel appears to have complete dominance in the skies over all the militarily important parts of Iran."
"What that all adds up to is that the U.S. has the capacity to destroy Iran’s critical nuclear facilities in a way that in the short run is basically risk free. They can fly bombing missions over Iran with all its air defenses down. Again, in the near term, it’s basically risk free."
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/an-offer-trump-cant-refuse