Adding onto this, we've already seen American nuclear subs launch cruise missiles with excellent effect on target with almost no detection (until people leaked that it had fired because nobody even knew it was there, and people started gloating).

Thinking about it now, that would probably be the most likely avenue of attack, as Iran would certainly have now way of detecting them, and no way of stopping the missiles once they were in there air. None of our gulf allies including Saudi Arabia and Qatar (patoey!) would inform the Iranians of a strike from a submarine. One or two submarines firing cruise missiles would only cause minimal damage generally, or major damage in specific places; so like Milosovich, it could deter further massacres if a single important place was struck (or somebodies house).

The biggest risk would be an Iranian counter-battery strike on Qatari & American bases in the area. Given how the carrier task force would have the most anti-missile systems available, I'm not confident a proper missile attack from the Iranians using their best stuff (if one is still possible) could be stopped. Most likely, American forces would need to be immediately repositioned off base to reduce casualties, like they did back in Al-Asad in 2020.

Question is, is such an exchange worth it? No, probably not. However, if Iran's missile sites aren't functioning, or the target of the cruise missile attack are the missiles themselves, maybe the calculation is better. I don't know enough to be sure.

Then again, if you're the Iranians, would you really want to use your missiles on the Americans for conducting a small strike on your shit, or wait for a real Israeli air attack. Israel could very well launch a major air offensive themselves; but they'd be seen coming literally a thousand miles away because Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Turkey are gonna call them out immediately, even if they don't intercept them.

Not really. Rubio was planning an attack for months, not really years. The assets moved into position and had been slowly testing Venezuela's military capacity while Delta was training daily how to raid Maduro's house.

Shit being on paper as a plan is nice, but actually maneuvering into position is a whole different thing.

If the Americans want to pull some black-ops shit; they can easily use CIA SAD guys, along with whatever network Mossad has in-country to conduct bombings and assassinations. TBH, some decent snipers could wreck havoc on police & militia shooting protestors if that was the primary concern. Libyan militias were actually famous for this, and the earlier parts of the coup in Ukraine had similar tactics. Snipers can stall armor, so there's plenty of shit that can be done to protect the protestors, or even collapse the government, without airstrikes.

"Surely the US doesn't give a shit about the Iranians on the ground."

little bit from column a, little bit from column b. Building rapport with the locals helps a lot in any military effort, and smoking a piece of shit who's machine gunning civilians gains you quite a few points.