This is a reader-supported publication. I give it all away for free but could really use your support if you want me to keep doing this.
As the dust settles from yesterday’s thunderous opening salvos in what the Pentagon has officially dubbed Operation Epic Fury, we’re getting our first clear-eyed view of this joint US-Israel campaign against Iran’s nuclear and military backbone. This isn’t some vague retaliatory pinprick or deterrence signaling—it’s a meticulously orchestrated air-naval hammer designed to attrit the regime’s warfighting capacity, decapitate key leadership nodes, and set the table for internal collapse.
No ground troops, no invasion—just overwhelming Leviathan firepower from carriers in the Gulf, B-52s lofting precision munitions, F-35s slicing through weak-ass defenses, and layered missile shields keeping the Iranian response overwhelmingly toothless. Israel calls its parallel effort Roaring Lion, syncing perfectly with America’s muscle to hit both “imminent threats” (missile sites) and high-value regime figures.
The mission isn’t ambiguous. Trump frames it as delivering “freedom” to Iranians; Netanyahu sees it as existential necessity. Per Trump’s post-strike address, it’s about shattering Iran’s nuclear breakout capacity, proxy-sustaining logistics, and command-and-control nodes that fuel the so-called Axis of Resistance. This is sustained coercion, not one-and-done.
Reports confirm strikes blanketed western and central Iran. Initial waves hammered sites near Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s offices and personal compound. Israel claims hits on gatherings of senior officials, including potential strikes near President Masoud Pezeshkian. Isfahan, the core nuclear site, got special attention, naturally, along with Fordow—the regime’s most fortified enrichment site. Likewise, we see a focus on Iran’s covert missile production and storage sites. Beyond that gutting and wiping out Iran’s meager navy, one spots a systemic attack on IRGC facilities throughout the country, meaning Israel is going for leadership decapitation. Apparently, regime chiefs who huddled for emergency sessions earned special Israeli effort. The US provides the broader attrition: factories, depots, radars.
This is network-centric warfare at its best: sever C2 (command/control), nukes, missiles, and proxies in one symphony of destruction (h/t Dave Mustaine). Range spans ~1,000 miles from Gulf launch points, feasible due to stealth, stand-off weapons, and tanker re-fuelings. Iran’s air defenses simply aren’t up to the task of countering this coordinated attack by arguably the two finest militaries in the world.
Then again, nobody said this had to be a fair fight.
Understand the ambition here: this target set is designed to ladder up to regime change without boots on ground. That is a massive bet unsupported by … most of history—the Richard Pape comeback.
Here’s my 12-point cutdown on this whole affair:
1) Trump is now the Neocon of Neocons
NOTUS: The Neocons Are Excited. But They Also Know Trump.
This vaults Trump beyond Bush-era neoconservatism’s multilateral shackles—no Powell UN slide shows, no coalition haggling, no neurotic Rumsfeld snowflakes. We’re talking overwhelming Leviathan force with minimal constraints. Rhetoric seals it: “All I want is freedom for the people.” Reagan-esque but instantly translated into bombings.
Bush needed 40+ allies on Iraq. Trump duets with merely Israel, absent any strategic PTSD. Neocons naturally salivate at Iran template—regime pressure sans ground troops. Trump redefines neoconservatism bolder—intervention without apology, allies optional.
This is Trump’s Big Bang, alright.
2) Once you say “regime change,” there’s no going back
CATO INSTITUTE: The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same: The Failure of Regime-Change Operations
Senior voices in Trump’s orbit now speak openly of Iran’s theocracy facing existential peril, hinting that its collapse would be the best thing that could happen for regional stability. CATO warns of historical pitfalls, but Epic Fury flips the script—implicit regime change as the objective turns every limited strike into an escalation ladder step that cannot logically end with Khamenei’s mullahs still ruling.
Why no reverse gear? Bush 43’s 2003 de-Baathification made Saddam-era return impossible amid insurgency—logic is same here with IRGC, and—again—that is one massive bet. I guess I can see a reformed/defanged IRGC on life support grudgingly sacrificing the mullahs, but God only knows the damage required to force that outcome and whether or not Trump and Netanyahu can stay that course long enough—despite domestic pushback. But to be clear: Epic Fury’s bet is all-in or bust.
3) This is a war of Trump’s singular choice
NYT: For Trump, the Iran Attack Is the Ultimate War of Choice
You could also say that this is a war of mostly Israel’s choice. Netanyahu has deliberately synchronized a massive West Bank land-registration drive with the Iran confrontation. Israel counts on US military might to lock in these facts on the ground, advancing a domestic territorial project under the protective noise of US–Iran clashes.
Timing thus screams intent.
Historical parallel: 1967’s Six-Day War blitz masked post-victory Golan Heights grabs. Today, Epic Fury’s missile symphony drowns out the bulldozers. Iran’s threat trumps Palestine every time, letting borders harden while the outside world fixates on Hormuz. Israel’s choices set pace; Trump provides cover.
4) The tail is wagging the Leviathan dog
WEEKLY DISH: The Last War For Israel?
Andrew Sullivan’s post nails it: Iran obsession buries two-state chatter, letting Jerusalem sequence homeland grabs as security necessity. Tail sweeps, dog supplies bite, and Palestine fades to footnote. America’s Leviathan serves Jerusalem’s clock.
Trump is Israel’s golem: they conjure him up and he delivers bigly.
5) The wider regional war ain’t happening
POLITICO: 7 Experts on the Risk of a Wider War with Iran
Hezbollah’s headless remnants dig deeper into their Lebanese bunkers, signaling restraint via backchannels instead of unleashing rocket deluges. Houthis poke with sporadic drones but hunker in survival mode after Israeli airstrikes gutted their leadership. Iraqi Shia militias rumble threats but stay leashed, fearing US strikes. POLITICO’s expert roundup concurs: proxies are all in damage-control mode and who can blame them?
Again, Tehran cannot command what it cannot resupply.
Meanwhile, no BRICS cavalry musters. What would be the point of suffering those bloody noses?
Still, the longer this goes on, the more outside meddlers are encouraged to act. A smart—or just impulsive—Trump knows that time is not on his side.
6) “Wider war” is a useful myth, not an actual pathway
GLOBAL THROUGHLINES: Hit them Donald one more time!
Sure, headlines scream “conflagration risk” from Hormuz to Lebanon, but that’s deliberate theater serving three players perfectly. Israel invokes the specter to justify maximalist moves—like West Bank “state land” grabs and Golan fortifications—framing every fence post as anti-Axis survival. Washington brands Epic Fury’s Tomahawks and F-35s as “de-escalatory precision,” preempting proxy retaliations that never sync. Tehran brandishes the blowout threat to bluff Hormuz closure, deterring Gulf tankers without daring the act. In the end, mutual deterrence, proxy frailty, and logistics chokeholds keep this a 2-on-1 beatdown where 90% of Iran’s missiles accomplish nada.
Myth sustains narratives; physics enforces containment.
7) Trump is structuring for sustained operations
NYT: Initial Focus of U.S. Strikes in Iran Is Military Targets
The NYT confirms the initial focus: strictly military targets—ballistic missile infrastructure, proxy logistics depots, and air defense nodes—laying groundwork for prolonged attrition. No tits-for-tats here: Trump is loaded for regime change.
This force mix screams persistence. You establish unassailable air superiority, then methodically attrit elite IRGC units—the regime’s praetorian guard—starving their command loops and resupply chains. Daily sorties (200+ US, 100+ Israeli) crater production lines, isolate field HQs, and soften internal control, setting conditions for protests to tip into collapse or successor fragmentation.
Allegedly, no ground troops needed. Think of it as a redux of 1999 Kosovo air campaign—78 days of air-only forced Milosevic’s fall.
Fingers crossed!
8) Trump plans to own the moral high ground
Let Tehran’s cornered mullahs overreact with a bloody domestic crackdown on surging student and popular protests, then frame US follow-on strikes as reluctant but righteous protection of an abused population rising against tyranny. Protests ignite from economic agony and post-strike chaos.
Trump’s alibi is pitch-perfect: We had no choice—the regime butchers its own while arming terrorists and reaching for nukes!
How does that differ from Bush 43’s sales job on Iraq?
Next question!
Meanwhile, MAGA roars, independents nod at “humanitarian necessity,” even dovish Dems split on protests. Polls surge with usual rally-around-the-flag inflation. Abroad, it divides critics: Europe murmurs “restraint” but can’t stomach Tehran’s brutality; Gulf Arabs cheer quietly; even China’s state media soft-pedals as Xi eyes oil flows.
9) Iran’s regime is strategically isolated
TIME: How Iran Became Isolated in the Middle East
Russia’s Vladimir Putin, neck-deep in Ukraine quagmire and Trump-brokered resource deals (think Arctic gas swaps for sanctions relief), has zero appetite for nuclear-tinged rescue ops that risk US carriers in the Gulf. Beijing’s Xi Jinping won’t jeopardize 90% of China’s oil imports snaking through Hormuz or upend its Taiwan timeline for Khamenei’s fading theocracy. India, Tehran’s erstwhile port partner, stays neutral to safeguard its own energy imports and corridor bets.
As usual, great powers retreat to realpolitik whenever such great uncertainty is foisted upon the system. It’s just the safest course to take.
Result? Epic Fury faces a lone and wounded wolf.
10) Payoff: a Middle East without Iran as primary threat vector
FOREIGN AFFAIRS: Iran’s Dangerous Desperation
The operation’s transformative endgame: shattering or defanging Iran’s current regime via US-Israel strikes on nuclear sites, IRGC command nodes, and missile infrastructure triggers a cascade that orphans its proxy empire. Hezbollah and Hamas starve. The broader “Axis of Resistance” (Houthis, Iraqi militias, Syrian remnants) atrophies into irrelevance without this central nervous system.
This unlocks a golden strategic window. Gulf monarchies (Saudi, UAE, Bahrain), long cowed by the Shia Crescent, pivot boldly to Israel—expanding Abraham Accords into full-spectrum defense pacts, joint bases, and energy corridors sans Iranian veto. External powers (US, India, even wary Europe) reorder security architectures. No central spoiler means no nuclear dominoes toppling Riyadh or Ankara. Deterrence simplifies to Israeli qualitative edge plus Sunni numbers.
Long-term conflict risk plummets systemically. A post-Khamenei Iran—secular, deal-prone, balkanized—integrates with the wider world. Epic Fury’s bold payoff: a Middle East where threat vectors shrink, trade booms, and the dual-Leviathan rules unchallenged.
11) Historical hinge: the bet is huge but not irrational
COUNCIL ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS: America Revived—A Grand Strategy of Resolute Global Leadership
The operation’s audacious core is a historical hinge bet rivaling the Soviet Union’s 1991 implosion or Saddam Hussein’s 2003 Baathist downfall. Removing or radically transforming Tehran’s theocracy via sustained air coercion would unleash cascade effects across Eurasia: energy flows liberalized, alliance patterns redrawn, and deterrence structures rebooted. A “Shia Crescent” shattered and Central Asian pipelines flowing west.
Why bet now? Iran’s fragility screams opportunity. Student protests chant for monarchy restoration, the underclass boils, economy craters under sanctions, and proxies reel from Israeli decapitations. External backing is zero.
This “hard shove” at peak vulnerability is supremely bold, but not irrational. Leviathan corrections—air-only attrition forcing internal collapse—paid off in Milosevic’s Serbia (1999) and Qaddafi’s Libya (2011), gaining the sought-after outcome. Saddam’s fall birthed Iraq’s Shia tilt but killed his WMD dreams. The Soviet breakup unlocked Eastern Europe.
Iran’s transformation? A Shia Iran tamed integrates Gap to Core, slashing terror exports and nuclear domino risks. Trump’s unconstrained force (no UN handwringing) meets Netanyahu’s existential timing—a perfect storm.
Risks loom but network physics favor our dynamic duo. History hinges on such bets. Epic Fury swings for the fences.
12) Ding, dong, the witch is dead
BBC: Trump says Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is dead after US-Israeli strikes
Khamenei’s death after almost three-dozen years of rule is no mere decapitation but dynamite under the regime’s foundations. Still, the safe bet is that the Islamic Republic doesn’t crumble from his martyrdom but rather radicalizes—hard. The IRGC, already the real power, snaps into full-spectrum retaliation mode … or maybe it seeks an off-ramp to regroup and—just like last year—stop the damn bombing!
As for succession? The mullahs have gamed it for decades. Clerics and Guards cut a deal fast, infighting stays in the family, and the martyr myth sells domestic lockdown like nothing else.
As for reformers? Labeled Zionist stooges and purged. IRGC owns the transition, grabs more cash and guns, turns Iran into fortress mode. No reverse gear here either: they militarize foreign policy, we and the Israelis double down on threats, and that slim shot at a post-mullahs Guards-led pivot gets bloodier, longer, more remote.
For Trump-Netanyahu, this is the curse of winning ugly—you achieve heightened deterrence but inherit a forever-vendetta with no off-ramp. Bottom line: regime change? Nah. Regime reboot, IRGC edition, with global headaches to follow.
Epic bet succumbs to brutal odds.
Trump is nothing if not audacious.
Still, the liberal interventionist—and Catholic—in me approves: commit the sin, ask for forgiveness later.
More crudely stated: always kick ’em when they’re down, because God knows they’d do the same to you.
