So it seems that due to imprecise language people disagree on the exact place of the red line the US (and Israel) were drawing. The post you responded to was indicating that the red line was, as a sibling comment mentioned, the breakout time from political decision to working nuclear weapon. Many other people, yourself included, seem to consider the red line to be the political decision itself. This red line now may be crossed in response to our first strike after their violation of the breakout time red line. If we were successful it seems as though the message is clear, we will use overwhelming military force to prevent them from having a nuclear weapon. So even if the political decision gets made to build one, any attempt to restart the process - which isn't exactly stealthy - will be met with similar force. If we failed though, then we might get to see a nuclear weapon being used in modern times.

> they were not working actively towards a bomb

I think this becomes a definitions game again. I'd consider a country to be "working actively towards a bomb" when it's taking costly steps that provide no commensurate benefit except towards a nuclear weapons program. At that point, there's no rational explanation for their actions except that they're working towards the bomb.

So e.g. enrichment of uranium to <3.67% (as permitted by the JCPOA) is not such a step, since that's also economically useful for civilian nuclear power. Enrichment to 60% is such a step--the only conceivable civilian uses are niches for which the cost would far exceed any benefit.

It seems you agree they're enriching in the latter way, but you don't count that as "working actively towards a bomb". So what definition are you using for that phrase? We obviously can't just let the Iranian government decide, or they'll define everything short of a successful test as part of their "peaceful explosive lenses program" or whatever.

My general sense is that the JCPOA was working reasonably well, and it's unfortunate that Trump exited. To the extent these strikes were a necessary solution, they might be to a problem of his own making. I agree that Iran could be emboldened and merely delayed here. That may imply an inevitable endgame of either regime change or near-total destruction of Iran's economic capacity, big escalations and risks.

“Intelligence community” can be wrong. It’s not as if they are infallible.