RE: CBC.ca: Iran and Israel may have taken a step back from a catastrophic regional war
The biggest takeaway from this article is at the very end: “Iran is a nuclear weapons threshold state.” Iran doesn’t want to escalate at this stage because the Iranian rulers know that if they start an all out war with Israel they’ll (1) lose, because Israel has been armed by the U.S. for decades and because U.S. and U.K. and other allies will take Israel’s side. And (2) they know if it gets to and all out war, Israel will destroy their nuclear research facilities. Iran wants nuclear weapons, and they are close to having them. They will not risk setting their nuclear program back years, so they backed off—until they have nuclear weapons which they will then use.