I’m not sure and leaning to disagree on this. I can for sure make a more compelling case that an Iranian nuke is more damaging to non-proliferation than preventing an Iranian nuke via kinetic means is. This MAY hurt non-proliferation but an Iranian bomb means a certain Saudi bomb almost immediately.
There are many countries in the world for whom building a nuclear weapon would be significantly easier than it ever was for Iran and none of them seem to be racing to build them. They’ve all been able to cover their bases against regime change via a combo of alliances, conventional security, and most relevantly, responsible behavior.
Nuclear blackmail and brinksmanship of the type Iran engage(d) in is useful to a certain type of regime: an aggressively revisionist, destabilizing, aspiring regional power with the conventional balance of power against it. And not many of those exist. Iran, North Korea are kind of it. Japan is not watching this and starting its program although it would be a trivial problem for them.
U.S. signaling here is also important. Limited strikes and a request for direct negotiations with the Ayatollah is a clear sign of the intent of the action and a de facto recognition of the regime’s legitimacy.
The far more damaging case for proliferation is Ukraine, where a nuclear power aggressively attacked a small neighbor with the explicit goal of territory and regime change, while using nuclear blackmail to fend off the world. That’s the situation that will make Tokyo, Seoul, or Riyadh begin to reassess if the U.S. guarantee becomes threadbare. Not the example of Iran. You know, the nuclear-power war of aggression that Anastasis really supports.