They're not going to escalate. They're already getting their ass handed to them by Israel and the last thing they want is to throw down with their other enemies in the region right now. You are correct that there will be no ground invasion, so there is no existential threat to the government. This means they have no incentive to do something stupid that will make anyone change their mind on that invasion.
It's a country of 100M people. They're not just gonna be have their "ass handed to them", just like it didn't happen in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq1, Iraq2, Yemen and Afghanistan. Countries do adapt to bombings, especially when there's a superpower nearby.
Also if they "were just about to have the bomb" then they could develop it and use it after. So there is the conflicting position that they are both insane to use it and but both sane to not escalate the conflict. This is where most pro-war arguments fail the basic logic test in the nuclear bomb era.
"just like it didn't happen in korea, vietnam, iraq1, iraq2, yemen and afghanistan."
that's a fancy retelling of history you got there. MILLIONs died in those wars and less than 100K US troops died. Out of those wars, iraq 1 led to iraq defeat and withdrawal from kuwait. iraq 2 had saddam dragged through the streets and a regime change within 3 weeks, yemen was counterterrorism - there's no regime to topple, in afghanistan the taliban regime was removed for 20 years and only once the troops were withdrawn were they able to crawl back.
Possibly, but the cost that regime being over is likely similar to that US paid with war in Afghanistan and Iraq, which, and I am being very, very charitable, was too much blood for too little gain.
Forcing Iran into submission is not going be as easy as it was in Iraq.
One of the key reasons behind why Iraq fell so quickly is that Saddam made all the wrong moves leading up the invasion.
By that point, he had alienated every single potential ally (including Iran) - and virtually all states in the region were supportive of the invasion, regardless of their positions in public.
Not to mention that the invasion of Iraq was ultimately a failure anyways..
Iran has been escalating reasonably, and is clearly acting as a sovereign state should. You can project all you want, but Saddam was playing another ballgame.
Unfortunately, international law means nothing these days, so it might have been a mistake to not establish deterrence sooner.
Regardless, Iran is not going to be as easy to topple as some people might think.
I'm not he one adrift from reality. Europe has always been helping out a lot, more than the US, because Ukraine has been politically aligned with the EU for well over a decade. It's the US that has been scaling back its involvement.
