A post I wrote at the end of 12 day war. I will do a similar one for this war soon. It answers the question why this war is happening because they failed in 12 day war. Posting it here as a reference for post to come on current war.
Goals and Outcomes From Israeli POV in 12 day war.
Phase 1:
Goal: Cripple IRGC strike corps completely by inner terrorism or strike so IRGC just goes silent, bomb their bases, kill their top Generals etc.
Outcome: Utter Failure, IRGC's CoC re-established within few hours and started landing missiles in Israeli cities. Its like better ppl took over than those who were killed.
Phase 2:
Goal: Once IRGC is gone (assumption), rally Iranians against IRI government so they cause inner chaos on streets, erupt up a civil war like rising hence the "Rising Lion" of Persian/Aryan Empire against Islamist IRI.
Outcome: Failure, Inner hired agents started getting busted, termed as domestic terrorists and people instead rallied around IRI mullahs. Same mistake USSR and Baathists did against Iran in 1940s and 80s, respectively. You dont bomb houses of population and expect them to rally for you.
Phase 3:
Goal: Regime Change by targeting IRI mullah leadership and their sycophants.
Outcome: Failure
Phase 4:
Goal: Drag US in the war against Iran. Israel always knew, the large geography of Iran along with its tough missile forces, will be too much for Israel to handle in a war so they they needed US military muscle.
Outcome: Partial success, Epstein files+AIPAC pressure worked to the extent that Trump did a token probably pre-bargained strike to end the conflict. US straight way refused to enter the war the Israel was pushing it to. Trump even categorically said that they deliberately did not fire at Armed Forces of Iran.
Phase 5:
Goal: Establish Deterrence over Armed forces of Iran. Cripple and Scare them to the point that Iran just keeps on taking it from Israel with impunity the way Syria, Lebanon, Palestine took before.
Outcome: Strategic Failure, IRGCAF kept firing back inside the heart of Israel till the last minute before ceasefire. They used hypersonics, they used solid fueled MRBMs, they used whatever they needed without any hurdle. Israeli IADS crumbled to a fair amount. The neighbourhoods, the institutions, the port that never saw an ounce of fire from enemy were struck. When you fail to subdue enemy, you fail in war. Deterrence was not established. Instead Oil attack was responded within hours at Bazan Haifa oil field. SPND (our strategic command) attack was responded within hours at Weizmann military R&D institute, Bat Gav tech park, Mossad HQ ... IRIAF was missing from action but they successfully got their decoys hit causing enemy to loose millions of USD. Atleast 8-10 IRIAF decoys with no secondary explosions were seen taking PGMs.
Phase 6:
Goal: Rally regional foes of Iran and global powers to Israeli support. Namely Turkey (biggest trade partner of Israel regionally), Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, PGCC arabs.
Outcome: Except for Jordan, no country provided verbal or material support to Israel. KSA's intelligence warned Iran of incoming Israeli attack before the war started. Qatar facilitated the ceasefire. Oman made sure US-Iran in-person communication continues. Turkey like a good pet kept on supplying Israel with 6 Billion USD worth raw materials while same Israel is ethno cleansing Sunni Arabs and were killing "Tork" Azeris in Iran (so much for Turkic nationalism). It was expected but atleast Turkey did not do anything against Iran directly. Chinese supplies continued through the war. Nobody did anything in Israeli favor except for usual suspects.
Phase 7:
Goal: Destroy Nuclear program of Iran. Cease/destroy the ~0.5 Ton HEU.
Outcome: Failure. A spread out Nuclear Program is not a tangible entity that can be destroyed by killing few workers or dropping few bombs in sand. Knowledge, blueprints, tools, experience is still there and that half a ton HEU is still inside Iran somewhere where it was probably taken before US attack came. Its still in the hands of same IRI mullahs and IRGC.
Phase 8:
Goal: Establish Narrative, claim victories for inner consumption.
Outcome: Full success. Israel not only falsely claimed militarily unproven victories over Iran and got away with in in eyes of its own population, it actually even hid the hits it took from IRGC. Phase 9 and 10 are related to this.
Phase 9:
Goal: Narrative of total air-superiority of over Iran.
Outcome: Narrative success, They claimed aerial superiority over Iran while except for 2 jettison cases by F-15 when it was tracked and fired upon by a Khordad battery and one spice PGM strike not a single shred of evidence exist that Israeli planes were flying over heads of people in Iran the way Israeli media claimed. Majority of the attacks came from Inner terrorists and aerial attacks came from Iraqi airspace through ALCMs and ALBMs. In such a two week long conflict, had it been a total air-superiority there would have been hundreds of clips of fighters in skies, launching munitions the way we saw in Iraq, Ukraine, Syria before. Yet Israel claimed this and IRI mullahs being dumb as hell just could not even understand the value of narrative war.
Phase 10:
Goal: Hide hits/Casualties, Gag order on on-site visuals, reports.
Outcome: Full Success, Israel took hits from IRGCAF, in its population centre, at its port, at its institutions. We know that. But how many people died? not 30 or so as they claimed for sure otherwise such a strict state level gag order would not have been issued in first place. IRI thrives on civilian deaths because thats exactly how they came into power. More deaths, more martyrs, more mass emotions to rally people around. Israel on the other hand over the decades has shifted from "victim Jew" to "mad dog" image, they have ensured their population that IDF is just invincible. When the same population sees an enemy that can destroy their homes, their neighbourhoods, disrupt their lives whenever it wants, they can easily loose this mad dog image of their armed forces in their minds. Which is why it was necessary for Israel to hide casualties and they successfully did that. Police was ceasing mobile phones in areas taking missile hits. IRI mullahs have no understanding of such narrative warfare. Instead of Israel telling how many ppl died it should have been Mullahs telling their own story of how many they killed. Thats how wars are fought at information warfare levels but like IRI is dumb as shit. IRGC reciprocated the port strike within few hours once Israel struck oil infra of Iran. After that IDF just never touched any hydrocarbon infrastructure of Iran, it was such a huge victory to establish deterrence over enemy yet IRI media arm had no knowledge or understanding of establishing narrative.