- Their nuclear programs (particularly weapons grade enrichment) are mainly for national and regime pride, similar to the space program or the US/USSR/China's same weapons programs.

- I personally gut level never felt that Iran posed a threat of first strike even if they did come up with an atom bomb. Again, it's mainly a bargaining club and national prestige thing.

- Iran is a highly developed, educated society. We cratered their centrifuges years ago by infecting the PLCs that ran them with malware. They rebuilt anyway.

- Militarily they may be a paper tiger.

- Espionage and proxy wise, Iran has tremendous reach with their networks such as Houthis, weapons smuggling, etc. That is probably their greatest military asset and those types of outreaches are impossible to target effectively.

- Likewise they are considered tops in infiltration, and the US may experience grid failures or worse because of Iranian proxies.

Personally, I think Iran was already fairly well boxed in and major bombardment was not necessary.

There are a lot of unknowns about Iran's hidden strengths and the nature of its alliance with Russia. I personally believe that confronting them per instance was more reasonable and predictable than basically carpet bombing their nuclear sites and destroying infrastructure. Probably less "war" would be less costly in the long run.