A thousand square miles is tiny relative to the size of the country.
Personally, I tend to believe Iran is provoking Israel to act so they can retaliate claiming it was only self defense. It wouldn’t surprise me if Iran already has at least one nuke, possibly from Russia. If Israel were to do something like this and Iran responded with a nuclear weapon on the ground they would have cover to claim it was justified.
I agree with your assessment.
Iran is goading Israel to strike first so they can use what is up their sleeve. Nukes were practically on Ebay after the fall of the USSR. They had the cash to buy both the nukes and the technicians to maintain them. Their “peaceful” reactors are probably seeded with the same base as the weapons the Russians lost control of, to create a deniability factor for them.
We know for sure that the Iranians have been making beaucoup Cobolt 60, for medical purposes, doncha know. A few pounds of that in every missile launched over Israel, and they don’t even need to hit their target, Israel becomes a zombie wasteland for at least 6 years .