Israel has inflicted unprecedented damage on Iran’s elite

Not only was Israel’s attack on Iran was more varied and intense than its two previous military operations last year, but it also seems to have adopted part of the strategy that was used in the Israeli offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon last November.

It is not only to strike the missile bases of Iran – and therefore its ability to respond with force – but also to launch strikes to remove key members from the management of Iran.

This decapitation strategy for senior figures in Hezbollah has had devastating consequences for the group and its ability to set up a lasting counter-offensive.

Tehran images have shown what seems to be successful successful buildings, similar to the images of Israel’s attacks on the southern suburbs of Beirut, which led to the murder of the Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasralah.

No figures of this magnitude seem to have been killed in Iran. Supreme leader Ali Khamenei was not targeted.

But to kill the Iranian military staff chief, Hossein Salami, the commander of the powerful revolutionary guardsAnd several nuclear scientists, in the early hours of the operation, is having inflicted an unprecedented degree of damage on the Iranian elite. And Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu suggested that it could last for days

It would seem to require a more fierce response from Iran that we saw in its two attacks against Israel last year.

But this can also make Tehran’s ability to invoke such a more difficult answer. This is probably the calculation that Netanyahu made by ordering this climbing in the conflict.

Why he decided to move forward with the attack at the moment – the one he has long defended – could be for the reasons he has given.

In a statement published shortly after the start of the operation, he said it was a question of survival from Israel.

But Netanyahu has argued for many years that Israel has faced an existential threat if Iran obtains a nuclear bomb. To highlight the renewed emergency, a senior Israeli military official said that there were information that Iran had enough equipment to make 15 nuclear bombs in a few days.

But there may also have been a very different factor in play.

The talks between the United States and Iran on an agreement on the Tehran nuclear program were about to enter their sixth round on Sunday. There have been contradictory signals on the amount of progress made in this area.

For Netanyahu, however, it may have seemed that it was a crucial moment to make sure that what he considers an unacceptable agreement would be stopped on his traces.

Military military, he and his advisers may have considered that not only Iran, but also his attorney in the region – Hezbollah in particular – were weakened to such an extent that the threat they formerly posed is no longer as powerful.

The coming hours and days will show whether it turned out to be correct or a dangerous calculation error.