On Saturday, the United States and Israel launched a major coordinated military assault against Iran, codenamed ‘Operation Epic Fury’. Strikes targeted military installations, nuclear infrastructure, missile factories, and leadership compounds across Tehran, Isfahan, Qom, Kermanshah, Karaj, and other cities. President Trump, in an eight-minute video address, described the campaign as “massive and ongoing,” vowing to devastate Iran’s military, eliminate its nuclear programme, and bring about the end of its regime. He called on the Iranian public to “seize control of your destiny.” The question that should have been answered before the first bomb fell remains unanswered: what does the United States actually gain from this?
By Saturday night, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 86, had been killed in an Israeli strike on his Tehran compound, along with his daughter, son-in-law, and grandson. At least seven other senior officials were also killed, including the IRGC commander and Iran’s defense minister. A three-person interim council has assumed leadership. Yet the question of whether this translates into regime change remains entirely open. Iran’s political system is theocratic, with power dispersed through an entrenched network of ideologically motivated institutions. Removing a single figure, even the Supreme Leader, does not collapse that architecture. The interim council formed within hours. Ali Larijani has vowed an “unforgettable lesson.” A state that has been institutionally hardened does not vanish with its leader. It reconstitutes.
This is not the first time American forces have struck Iranian nuclear facilities. During the Twelve-Day War in June 2025, ‘Operation Midnight Hammer’ targeted enrichment sites at Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan. Trump declared that Iran’s nuclear programme had been “completely and totally obliterated.” A Pentagon assessment later concluded it had been set back by roughly two years, not eliminated. If that operation had decisively resolved the nuclear question, the need to strike again, barely eight months later, answers itself. Force delayed the problem. It did not end it.
The risks that were once theoretical are now unfolding across multiple fronts. Iran has launched retaliatory attacks on bases hosting US troops across the Middle East, and has struck targets in at least nine countries. The Iranian death toll has climbed past 787. Israeli warplanes have dropped over 1,200 munitions across 24 of Iran’s 31 provinces, and have struck even the headquarters of Iran’s state broadcaster in Tehran. Hezbollah has entered the war, launching strikes on Israel in declared retaliation for Khamenei’s killing, and Israel has responded with a new ground incursion into southern Lebanon. Two Iranian drones struck the US Embassy in Riyadh. The Houthis have resumed attacks on Red Sea shipping. What began as a targeted operation has become a multi-front regional confrontation of a scale not seen since the Iraq War.
The economic consequences are equally severe. The IRGC has officially confirmed the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, threatening to burn any ship that attempts passage. Ship-tracking data shows a 70 percent reduction in traffic, with over 150 vessels anchored outside the strait. At least three tankers have been struck, including one set ablaze off Oman. Iran possesses an estimated 5,000 naval mines capable of rapid deployment, and during the Iran-Iraq War it mined the strait with weapons that nearly sank the USS Samuel B. Roberts. Even without mines, the threat alone has been sufficient: Maersk, Hapag-Lloyd, and CMA CGM have all suspended transits. Oil prices have surged past USD 82 a barrel, and analysts warn a sustained blockade could push them past USD 120. The Kuwait Stock Exchange has suspended trading indefinitely. Pakistan has already raised petrol and diesel prices. What began as a military operation has become a global economic shock.
In Minab, a city in southern Iran, an Israeli strike hit a girls’ elementary school, killing approximately 180 young children according to Iran’s Health Ministry. The International Committee of the Red Cross warned that the escalation was “igniting a dangerous chain reaction across the region, with potentially devastating consequences for civilians.” Images of dead schoolchildren will not weaken the regime. They will strengthen it. Trump told the Iranian people their freedom was at hand, but Iranians have not risen in the unified revolt Washington appeared to expect.
Within the administration itself, the contradictions are becoming difficult to conceal. Vice President JD Vance, who built his political identity on opposition to foreign wars, telling the Washington Post just two days before the strikes that there was “no chance” of a drawn-out conflict and that he preferred the diplomatic option, privately urged Trump to “go big and go fast,” arguing that limited strikes were a mistake. He is now on television insisting the war will not become what it has already become. Pentagon briefers acknowledged to congressional staff that Iran was not planning to attack American forces unless Israel struck first. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, rather than contesting this, offered a revealing reformulation: the United States knew Israel intended to attack, knew Iran would retaliate against American assets, and chose to strike preemptively to reduce casualties from a retaliation triggered by an operation it had helped initiate. The imminent threat, in other words, was not Iranian aggression, but the consequences of a war the United States chose to join. Seven American service members are now dead. Lawmakers in both parties have condemned the strikes as unconstitutional, with votes on a war powers resolution expected this week.
What makes this moment particularly consequential is that diplomacy had not been exhausted. Badr Albusaidi, the Omani foreign minister who had been mediating between the two sides, said in the days before the strikes that negotiations had made “significant progress,” and told CBS News on the eve of the assault that a peace deal was “within our reach.” This is now the second time in eight months that the United States has launched military operations against Iran in the middle of active negotiations. Ali Larijani, speaking for the interim council, has since declared that Iran will not negotiate with the United States. The diplomatic channel is now closed. If the United States wishes to return to the table, it will first need to explain to Tehran why a third attempt would not end the same way as the first two.
President Trump has acknowledged that the campaign may continue for four to five weeks. The Supreme Leader is dead, but the system he built is theologically driven, institutionally entrenched, and already reconstituting. The strikes have triggered escalation across multiple fronts, drawn Hezbollah into open conflict, killed American service members, rattled global markets, killed schoolchildren, and may yet consolidate the very forces they seek to weaken. A ceasefire is now urgently required, not as a concession, but as a recognition that the military instrument has reached the limit of what it can achieve. America’s objectives, whether they concern the nuclear programme, the missile arsenal, or the architecture of the regime itself, were closer to being addressed at the negotiating table than they are now on the battlefield. What remains is a choice: continue a campaign whose costs are compounding by the day, or find the political will to stop, rebuild a credible diplomatic channel, and pursue through negotiation what force has twice failed to deliver.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2026
The writer is an economist and an educationist