Published: 2 March 2026
Last updated: 2 March 2026
Israel and the United States have launched combat operations against Iran via Operation Epic Fury. The air campaign appears aimed at three targets: Iran’s military bases and command structure, its air defences and strategic missile sites and its leadership.
Early strikes were successful in killing Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamanei and several key members of the leadership.
The strikes themselves are likely to be successful from a strictly military standpoint. Israeli and American forces are quickly establishing air superiority over Iran and disabling Iran’s anti-air capabilities.
These attacks occur at a moment when Iran is weakened both domestically and internationally.
The Iranian regime is still recovering from the December and January protests that were the greatest challenge to the Iranian government since the 1979 Iranian Revolution.
Internationally, key members of Iran’s “ring of fire,” like the Houthis in Yemen and Hezbollah in Lebanon, are in a vulnerable position. Furthermore, the domestic unrest have emboldened people around the world to challenge the Iranian regime’s legitimacy.
Comments2
Steve Holstein7 March at 03:01 am
I’ve seen ‘six-deep’ succession plans cited even by some Israeli analysts, but I don’t buy it. A list of names isn’t a credible plan, especially when it lacks superior training or genuine information sharing. A failing regime with corrupt tentacles reaching through every level of its military and industrial infrastructure is simply incapable of comprehensive planning. Recent reports of international crypto flows and asset flight ahead of the war further expose the facade: the ‘new guard’ has no intention of sacrificing themselves to protect the old guard’s inherited wealth.
Any succession plan here will function like a cockroach without a head. The legs will kick longer than you might expect, but the body is already dead.
The ensuing chaos is the real threat. Whether that vacuum is viewed as more manageable than the regime’s survival seems to depend entirely on your political leanings. For many of us, the morality of the war and the support for the Iranian people are beyond doubt. The real question for the U.S. and Israel is whether they can emerge victorious while surviving the internal assaults on their democracies led by Trump and Netanyahu.
Mark Ian5 March at 07:06 am
The victories of Nazism and the Empire of Japan against the poorly armed Nations enabling the Holocaust of the Jewish and Roma People and Starvation of the Slavic People and tens of millions killed in China and Asia with Heinous Atrocities and Barbarism provided the urgency in attacking the Jihadi Republic of Iran .
The chants “Death to America “ and “Death to Israel” began to be taken with fear with the parading of underground ballistic missiles and deep underground uranium enrichment cylinders
The Aim is a Moderate Iranian Regime the model being Japan keeping the Emperor after surrender August 1945.