Israel bombs Iranian natural-gas processing center.

The war is starting to become less polite.

So we appear to be entering a second stage of the war if the US and Israel are starting to attack critical infrastructure. They had been careful not to do so as to not upset the prospects of the Iranian people post war. The idea has been to concentrate on military targets in the hopes that they could crush the military enough that the Iranian people might be able to rise up. In that event, they wanted all of the critical infrastructure available to the people, especially as it pertained to energy for both public and economic use.

Not sure if the powers to be are losing some patience or if this was the plan all along. They may have "hoped" for a faster collapse of the regime. You know, hoping for the best, but planning for the worst. I would argue personally that this whole skirmish is still in the infancy stage and I would have expected to go on for some time before any Mullahs just decide to give up and jump ship. That being said, perhaps attacking military installations alone may have never driven them from power.

From what I understand, what they hit is a massive energy center that creates electricity for a good portion of the country. The monumental economic hardship this could cause Iran can not be overstated. It may also upset a couple of nearby countries (such as Qatar) that are also dependent on this. There is a fine line here that needs to be followed to keep the support of the Arab states right now (who seem more upset with Iran than with Israel). The US/Israel war machine should be careful not to flaunt the surprising goodwill that they have gotten from the are, which seems to be better than what they are getting from Europe and the rest of their allies.

Either way, I am hearing more and more experts provide their assessment that the US will have "boots on the ground" here shortly. As I have suggested to some in conversation, the political effects on boots on the ground can be wildly different, depending on the situation. A few Special Forces or Marines would not upset too many people, while a full scale invasion would. Think about the popularity of the early stages of the Afghanistan war (dependent on Special Forces) versus how unpopular Iraq eventually became as we invaded en-mass and stuck around and stuck around and stuck around. I believe boots on the ground in this case will look more like the former and less like the latter. We may use some forces to take over some critical areas like Kharg Island, but I doubt we will be invading Tehran anytime soon.