Israel’s first ever attack on the nuclear programme of a hostile state was over before the world even realised. The F-16 jets destroyed the Iraqi nuclear reactor at Osirak in 1981 and were home before the news hit the front pages.
The war unleashed on Iran last week, by contrast, is stretching across days and probably weeks with more extensive goals: wiping out Tehran’s ballistic missile arsenal, multiple nuclear enrichment facilities and weakening the regime to breaking point.
Both sides are aware a US intervention could be decisive, bringing bunker-busting ordnance, unavailable to the Israel Defense Forces, that are powerful enough to penetrate Fordow, a nuclear facility buried under a mountain.
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