The US military's impressive rescue of its shot down F-15 weapons officer airman from deep within Iranian territory, requiring hours of searches and a relatively large scale special ground forces deployment could be bigger than the event itself.
Could the success of the operation enhance the chances of US President Donald Trump approving a ground invasion of the Straits of Hormuz or of Kharg Island?
While Trump is notoriously spontaneous and can experience sudden shifts of increased confidence after a prior success (many argue he decided to attack Iran thinking it would be not much harder to handle than his coup in Venezuela), the answer is still probably no.
On one hand, the rescue operation showed America's vast ability to act within Iranian soil.
It did not just send troops into one area of Iran, but rather three.
There was a first area where the original pilot was rescued, while under heavy fire from the Iranians.
Next, there was a second separate area where the weapons officer was hiding.
Third, there was a distinct additional area where around 100 commandos who had been searching for the weapons officer for hours brought him to so that he could ascend on C-130 aircraft which would take all of them out of the country.
In addition, at this third location, the hundreds of soldiers were stuck for hours with a technical issue and still managed to get out of Iran unharmed.
US capabilities extend beyond 'hit-and-run'
Collectively, the US showed it can do far more than a hit-and-run raid by a few covert operatives for minutes behind enemy lines; it can operate in multiple locations with large forces for hours at a time.
This could heavily boost Trump's confidence to push through the risks of a large strategic invasion.
But there are stronger reasons why he probably will not take that leap of faith, at least not yet.
Although Iran had a general idea where the US airmen were, they did not know exactly.
In contrast, Iran has a clear understanding of the areas where the US would need to deploy ground forces to achieve specific aims related to Kharg Island or the Strait of Hormuz.
Put differently, it will be much harder for the US to achieve surprise for such strategic invasions trapped at being located in specific known spots versus searching for a single US soldier who was able to move off into an odd and concealed area.
Iranian forces could not pool themselves in the right spot, because they did not know where the right spot was.
So, surprise or no surprise, any forces the US was going to face were going to be minimal.
This will not be true with Kharg or Hormuz.
The US could certainly bomb any overtly evident Iranian forces, but other Iranian forces could be hidden and wait to show themselves until the right moment to ambush American forces who would be arriving.
Also, Iran knows where it would need to send reinforcements and once US forces would be on the ground, it might be harder for US aerial units to bomb Iranian reinforcements racing to the area without risking harming their own American ground troops.
Also, while 100 commandos is a large force, it can still be transplanted relatively fast from place to place with little exposure during the transportation stage of the plan.
In contrast, if thousands of US soldiers are transported on slow naval ships into a certain area, they may be far more exposed to missile and drone strikes long before they make shore.
How long would US troops need to hold a position in order to eliminate threats, restore maritime shipping lanes?
Possibly the most critical question is how long US troops would need to hold a position to eliminate Iranian threats to restore maritime shipping lanes.
Most analyses have presumed that if ground forces were deemed necessary, they might need to remain in place far longer than several hours.
If this turned out to be true, then Iran would have vast amounts of time and resources to use to think of ways to ambush Americans stuck in stagnant positions, both with its own ground forces and with a variety of aerial threats.
Finally, even if US ground troops seemed to succeed, if only a few Iranian drones or cruise missiles managed to evade US detection, they could damage one or two ships which might try to pass though the Straits, and if they succeeded, all of the US success on the ground would be undermine din terms of the greater strategic goal of opening the Straits.
All of this makes it likely Trump will not jump to mount further larger scale ground invasions in Iran.
Then again, he has surprised all observers over the last five-plus weeks with his commitment to extending this war, and if he runs out of other options to provide a picture of victory, he may eventually end up grabbing at one of these ground invasion options, despite the risks, to avoid a picture of a tie or even defeat.