>>507597445
The idea is to use their agents inside of Iran and have them cause a revolt. That's why the priority was to kill IRGC leadership - the IRGC is basically the internal security force in charge of national stability.
The reason why they had to do this right the fuck now is because Iran is getting Russian fighter jets which will eventually patch up that particular hole in their air defence system.
Jewish airstrikes were focused first on air defense sites in the western section of the country as well as airfields, and this is where the airplane technology comes into play. The destroyed jets were MiG29 models, because those are by design forward deployed on airfields closest to the enemy. Longer range models such as the F14s are in the back where they are much safer.
Once the SU35 jets arrive, ideally along with some AWACS to support them, airstrikes quickly drop in effectiveness.
They understand that the moment a squadron of these things becomes fully operational, their odds of success drop by something like 40%.
That said, their attack was relatively successful, in that in severely damaged the air defence system pretty much everywhere west of Teheran, but Iran is a big place with lots of supplies and that is not enough. I can't keep track of their actual movements, but it's logical that the Iranians are doing a creeping reinforcement from their mountainous underground bunkers westwards until the system is properly back online.
But slowness in terms of introducing the Su35s and their accompanying AWACS did cost them here quite a lot.