I’ve been burned on this before with Syria. But let’s go.

Factors against:

• Reasonably pluralistic democracy, with room for disagreements and transitions of power at some levels

• Unrest is limited to gender expression, which can be dealt with via relaxing of enforcement if necessary

• Has ideological para-military with significant funds and weaponry

• Has sufficient deterrence to prevent a full invasion and occupation, a la Iraq

• Not much in the way of serious ethnic unrest

Factors for:

• They’ve done very poorly recently, losing Syria, having Hezbollah crippled, Hamas decimated, and the bombings of its embassy, assassinations of its scientists and generals, etc.

• How credible is their deterrence? They threaten to do a bogan Samson Option, taking out the oil infrastructure of all surrounding gulf states. It’d suck for the world, and be bad for the Israeli economy, but the US would cope. Maybe it’d be worth it?

• They still don’t have a nuke