That’s what my money is on. That plus special forces plus mercenaries plus MEK, ISIS, kurds, whoever else they can rope in “moderate rebels” types proxy groups controlled by the west sent in for on the ground harassment and hit and run strikes to attempt to destabilize the government and bring the whole thing down. That plus numerous hacking attacks bringing down things like water, power, gas, internet, banking etc to further cook and beleaguer the Iranian population into either defeated submission or wanting/accepting change of government due to the sheer chaos.

Iran really should have 1) gotten nukes. 2) insisted Russia allow them to produce at least s-400 equivalent air defense systems as part of helping them with Ukraine. With a few dozen of those they could possibly inflict enough damage on the US that they’d retreat or never enter in the first place if they were shooting down the IOF air force these past few days.