The counter to this is that Iran could have — emphasis on could — built up such a massive ballistic missile arsenal and impenetrable latent nuclear weapons program that this in itself is almost as effective as a nuclear deterrent against Israel. The evidence of this is the unprecedented damage that their missiles have had on Israeli society and infrastructure, all of which has been reinforced by Israeli military efforts to censor the reporting on the seemingly large-scale damage of these missile barrages. Still, a functioning Iranian nuclear weapons program might have deterred this fighting from ever happening in the first place — or it could have actually led to nuclear war 🤷

Iran’s warning: Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in a national address that Iran will not surrender and warned that any US military intervention would result in “irreparable damage.”