Iran claims that the Israeli attack is a “declaration of war”. It is not. It’s certainly aggressive, dangerous, destabilising, and at least questionable under international law. But it is not a declaration of total war against Iran in the conventional sense.
If it were, then – armed to the teeth, with the most advanced weaponry in the world, and protected by the formidable Iron Dome – Israel would by now have flattened much of Tehran and obliterated Iran’s conventional military capability and economic infrastructure. Taking out all of the deeply buried nuclear bunkers in the Iranian countryside may take a little longer, but the Iranians seem more or less defenceless, and the Israeli assaults will continue.
