My longtime readers may find this title amusing: I first began predicting an Israeli attack on Iran over a dozen years ago, and finally gave it up when it never seemed to materialize. Well, it finally has, so I may as well weight in.
What Israel used to attack Iran's nuclear stronghold was a stand-off missile, also known as an ALBM. Its range was just under the crucial distance to Isfahan, so what Israel did to surmount that was remarkable: They took over Syrian airspace long enough to send in a fighter armed with an ALBM, possibly along with tankers to get it back home. From there, the fighter launched the ALMB, which was able to reach Isfahan unmolested. This is significant in a number of areas.
First, it shows the ability of Israel to hit targets anywhere in Iran without having to risk having any of its planes shot down. This is huge, as the chances of being able to pull of a manned airstrike were always low enough to provide a major incentive against it. Isreal now has shown that it has the means to take on Iran on its own turf. This sortie probably served more as a test platform than a real attack, and the missile used seems to have passed that test. It is almost certain that Iran was not able to intercept the missile--they would have said so if they had done so. Now they are probably frantically working to develop that ability, but Israel has also probably learned enough from this test to do an even better job next time.
Secondly--and this is also very significant--they got away with it. Iran decided that the best face-saving move was to claim that the missile didn't do any damage. No harm, no foul, no need to follow through on their promised massive retaliation. Any Iranian soldiers who witnessed the damage done are surely sworn to secrecty, and since the damage was behind the walls of the most secure site in the country, that secret won't be very hard to keep.
So for now, the tit-for-tat has probably reached equilibrium. Israel knows it can do serious damage to Iran, and Iran knows it too--this could go a long way toward keeping any further violence to a minimum. Which is exacly what Israel hoped for in this limited response to Iran's massive--but failed--attack on their citizenry, so it appears to have been a success.
