With brilliant intelligence and close U.S. and Israeli cooperation and coordination, Operation Epic Fury is systematically dismantling the terrorist regime of Iran's ayatollahs.
By Clarice Feldman
American Thinker
March 3, 2026
With brilliant intelligence and close U.S. and Israeli cooperation and coordination, Operation Epic Fury is systematically dismantling the terrorist regime of Iran's ayatollahs. And as if in a game of chess, the war has reshaped the Middle East, (a consistent source of hostilities), into a more peaceful and orderly part of the world. It has also demolished fears of Russian and Chinese intervention on behalf of the regime. (Russia's too broke and China's grasp is less than its reach.) Indeed China, which depended on Iran and Venezuelan oil, is unlikely to make good for a while if ever on its threats to occupy Taiwan.
A quick reminder of Iran's anti-U.S. aggression in recent decades: It took over our embassy and held 52 Americans there hostage for over a year; it bombed the Marine barracks in Beirut, killing 241 American troops, its IEDs killed 603 and maimed hundreds more American service members in Iraq, it supplied its terrorist proxies who attack U.S. forces and shipping, it brutally tortured CIA's Bill Buckley for 15 months, filming his agonies and sending the film to us.
Saggezza Eterna accurately describes our weak responses to these aggressions:
For years, the Democratic establishment operated on a delusional premise that a rogue regime could be bribed into morality. They sent pallets of cash to a state that burns the American flag, yet they express feigned shock when that same regime funds the slaughter of innocents across the globe. Under President Trump, that charade is finished. This joint operation with Israel is the definitive restoration of American deterrence. It is a calculated, surgical decapitation of a nuclear threat that the Left was content to manage with useless sunset clauses. The left-wing intelligentsia, those academic idealists with no skin in the game, spent a decade arguing for "strategic patience." In reality, they were subsidizing our own destruction. By neutralizing Iran's nuclear ambitions now, we prevent a catastrophic escalation that would have cost millions of lives and trillions of dollars. This is the definition of fiscal responsibility: preventing a global conflagration through early, decisive intervention.
The operation, dubbed Epic Fury, targets the Iranian Parliament, the National Supreme Council, the Ministry of Intelligence, and the Iranian Atomic Energy Agency. It is marked from the very beginning with incredible intelligence, meticulous preparation, and the patience to wait until everything was in place for rapid success.
The most knowledgeable analysis I found is by Shanaka Anselm Perera, who describes the decapitation of Iran's leaders and the destruction of institutional trust which follows.
They did not bomb Iran. They waited for Iran's entire leadership to sit down in the same room and then they bombed Iran. Months of intelligence. Thousands of hours of surveillance and signal intercepts. One variable: the moment the Supreme Leader, the President, and senior military command gathered in a single location at the same time. That moment was 8:15 this morning. Daylight. Every previous Israeli strike on Iran came at night. June 2025 launched in darkness. October 2024 after midnight. Iran's entire air defense doctrine is built around the assumption that Israel attacks in the dark. Israel attacked in broad daylight because the target was not infrastructure. The target was a meeting. Reuters confirms strikes targeted Khamenei and Pezeshkian. CNN confirms months of joint US-Israeli planning. Israeli officials confirmed the strike hit the location where Iran's top officials were gathered. Whether Khamenei was moved before the strike or extracted after is the most consequential unknown on the planet right now. If before, someone inside Tehran's inner circle told Jerusalem when and where the meeting would happen. If after, the strikes hit the room and he survived [ed: It's reliably reported he did not survive] Both scenarios are catastrophic for the regime. Because Iran's leadership now knows three things. Israel knew where they were meeting. Israel knew when they were meeting. Israel knew who would be in the room. And everything we watched over the past month, the F-22s at Ovda, the tankers at Ben Gurion, Al Udeid emptied to zero, 270 transport flights, all of it was the delivery architecture for one precision strike on one gathering. Every future meeting of Iran's senior leadership now carries one question: does Israel know about this one too.
The operation has a division of labor: The U.S. strikes are focused on the missile program and launchers. Israel's task is eliminating senior Iranian officials, a task which they seem to have carried out.
In the meantime, Iran has made hostile otherwise neutral or supportive neighbors.
Whether by sabotage or intent, Iran has fired on its neighbors and in the process seems to have made more enemies for no strategic benefit. It hit the United Arab Emirates, which intercepted the Iranian missiles. There we have the only reported casualty caused by Iran - a civilian hit by falling debris. Qatar intercepted an Iranian missile and reported no damage. Iranian missiles targeting Kuwait were "dealt with" with no damage reported. Jordan's military shot down two missiles fired at it by Iran. Saudi Arabia reports Iranian missiles aimed at it resulted in strikes.
Now understand what Iran just accomplished strategically. In attempting to retaliate against Israel and America, the IRGC fired missiles at six sovereign nations in a single morning. Not one of those nations attacked Iran [snip] Iran just converted every neutral and semi-neutral state in the Gulf into a potential co-belligerent. Every nation whose airspace was violated, whose civilians were killed, whose sovereignty was breached now has legal and political justification to join whatever coalition forms next. And the damage tells the real story. One civilian dead from debris. Intercepts across four countries. No confirmed destruction of any US military asset. No reported American casualties among 40,000 troops in theater. Iran fired at the entire Gulf and the Gulf caught almost everything. Compare this to what Israel did to Tehran this morning. Precision strikes on the IRGC Intelligence Directorate. Explosions near the Supreme Leader's office. Three detonations in central Tehran confirmed by Iranian state media itself. One side hit what it aimed at. The other side hit one civilian with debris. This is the asymmetry that will define the next 72 hours. Iran demonstrated intent to strike everywhere and capability to hit almost nothing. The Gulf states demonstrated they can defend themselves. And now those states must decide whether the country that just fired ballistic missiles across their borders gets to do it again. They will not let it happen again. Watch for the joint statement. Watch for airspace coordination between Riyadh, Abu Dhabi, Manama, and Kuwait City. Watch for the coalition that Iran just built against itself with a single salvo. Iran did not retaliate against Israel this morning. Iran gave every country in the Middle East a reason to retaliate against Iran.
Day One was Israel completing its part of the operation - the following day is America's turn. We can expect that under the cover of and with the air power aboard the USS Gerald R. Ford sitting off Haifa and the USS Abraham Lincoln off the Gulf of Oman we will hit Fordow with penetrator bombs. Day One of the war, he says, "was the scalpel. The second day is the hammer. And the hammer does not need a runway in anyone else's country to swing."
Domestically, we have the usual dishonest objections. 20 minutes after the first announcement by the President the paid protestors were girding their loins.
The emergency protests being held today, February 28, 2026, launched within hours of this morning's US-Israel strikes on Iran are organized by: the ANSWER Coalition, the People's Forum, CodePink, the Palestinian Youth Movement, American Muslims for Palestine, the National Iranian American Council, and 50501. Every core Singham-funded organization is on that list. This is not the first time this happened. The same pattern played out in June 2025: The PSL, People's Forum, and ANSWER Coalition mobilized within 24 hours of the first US strikes on Iran complete with signs and equipment before most Americans had even processed what happened. And before that, the same network activated within hours for Venezuela, for anti-ICE protests, for October 7 defenses. From a military intelligence perspective, experts described the overnight sequencing as "bearing the hallmarks of a pre-positioned influence network executing a rapid-response operation." CCP component activated. Good to note MTG met with Code Pink not too long ago. The head of Code Pink is married to Neville Singham.
The opposition will claim that Congress has to approve such actions. In fact, the president has 60 days to act before congressional authorization is required under well-established law.
As Jeff Childers reminds, there's ample very recent history in support of this.
Obama bombed Libya for months without so much as a courtesy call to Congress, and nobody got impeached. Biden unilaterally struck Syria and Iraq. The War Powers Resolution gives the president 60 days before requiring congressional authorization, and 48 hours before notice to Congress. Even at that, every single president since its passage has treated it more like a loose guideline than a legal requirement.
If this is the constitutional hill folks want to die on, welcome aboard - but they'd better have been equally outraged when the last few presidents did the exact same thing. Most of the currently outraged were conspicuously quiet then.
If Obama had done this, the Nobel Committee would have cut a second medal, Hollywood would be in production on the biopic, and the editorial board of the Times would be weeping with pride. Instead, Trump did it, so we're going with 'pre-emptive.' [/snip]
Every single president since Jimmy Carter has managed the Middle East, playing whack-a-mole with the latest crisis and passing the ruined wreckage along to his successor. Nobody dared try to actually solve the problem. Nothing ever changes. Not until President Trump.
Trump is swinging for the fences. He's done with ceasefires, peace summits, international committees, inspection regimes, and 'talks' with a regime that uses negotiations the way a boxer uses the ropes to buy time to catch their breath before the next round of violence. President Trump is aiming at a permanent end to the source of the instability.
If he pulls it off, and ends the Middle East forever war, it could produce an era of global peace and stability not seen since before World War I.
As for the claim that we are sick of forever wars, this will not be one of those. In Iraq the initial plan was to get Saddam and his administration and then have General Jay Garner turn the operations of state over to the traditional leaders. Unfortunately, Colin Powell persuaded Bush to abandon that in favor of a disastrous U.S. satrapy. This time, we have a population wanting change and a president who wants them to do it. We do plan to get out fast. Trump said, "When we finish, take your government in your hands. It will be yours. This will probably be your only opportunity for generations to come."
In the meantime, be assured this is a well-thought-out operation, with competent, well-equipped troops and nonpareil U.S. and Israeli intelligence services drawing the map of objectives.
This article was originally published on American Thinker.