See my comments in red type.
You'd be comign from deep off the bench and being advised on that decision by a random assortment of people. Probably making the decision harder/ slower. But it's probably the biggest, last card that they have to play at this point. 100% guaranteed to piss off everyone in one way or another. This calls to mind Mike Tyson's saying: "Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth." Iran has been getting the crap bombed out of them, and this is, as you noted, probably their best and fastest way of getting the bombing to stop. Not pissing off other countries is probably very secondary to them at this point in time.
I've been looking but not surprisingly can't find a definitive list of what mine laying assets we belived to be operational and how many of each we have destroyed,. You seem to have quite a bit of information on the subject of weapons and munitions. Do you have a subscription to Jane's or some similar publication?
