If blood must be shed to end tyranny, perhaps it is a worthwhile gamble. The Iranian people gain nothing from allowing the current regime to grow. A US-Iran war would almost certainly result in a democratic Iran, with a connected and educated populace capable of maintaining it. I think one of the main flaws in Iraq and Afghanistan was simply assuming that you could establish democracy anywhere and then the citizens of the country would come together to form a functional democratic government. Iran's populace is much better equipped for democracy. They have already started begging for it [1].
I don't really believe the air strike was conducted with good intentions. But it may end up having a positive side effect for the Iranian people if the current government is ousted.
I'll end this by posting something I wrote earlier on reddit:
"I mean, it's really an interesting conundrum, when is war with anyone ever a good idea?
And yet over the course of history there are several wars we have fought that are more or less universally accepted as being good ideas: the Revolutionary War, World War I, and World War II.
So obviously, at some point, the calculation must be worth it. But I don't know if it is possible for any human being to perform that calculation with the mental capacity we are all given. What I do know is that the Iraq war absolutely ended the suffering of people under Saddam Hussein's dictatorship, and the Afghanistan war somewhat ended the suffering of people under Taliban rule (the Taliban unfortunately still exists but is definitely not as strong as it used to be). What I don't know, and I don't think anyone can really know, is if the loss of those governments and introduction of our armed forces led to a general improvement on quality of life of Iraqi and Afghani citizens. I know the gut reaction is "obviously not" but neither of us are likely living in those countries at the moment, and so we really don't know how life has changed for them.
The million dollar question is: will toppling Iran's government and ending the suffering of its citizenry under it be a net benefit for its people, or is the status quo shielding them from an even worse fate? How can you really know?"