“Just when I thought I was out,” Al Pacino’s Michael Corleone says in The Godfather Part III, “they pull me back in.” For the United States and the Middle East, it’s a familiar feeling. The U.S. once again finds itself at war in a part of the world that some historians have called a “labyrinth.”
On Feb. 28, the U.S. and Israel carried out military strikes, code-named Operation Epic Fury, against the Islamic Republic of Iran. Americans are no strangers to warfare in the Middle East. Indeed, it has been the chief theater of U.S. military operations for much of the U.S.’s post-Cold War existence.
Yet a little more than two days in, Epic Fury has already been a war of firsts.
In a March 2 press conference, War Secretary Pete Hegseth called it the “most lethal, most complex, and most precise operation” in history. This isn’t mere bluster. In the war’s opening salvo, no fewer than 48 top Iranian officials were killed in precision strikes. Also dead was the regime’s so-called Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who had ruled with an iron fist since 1989 and was, until Saturday morning, the longest serving dictator on the world stage.
By all accounts, it was the largest decapitation strike in modern history.
At 86, Khamenei was long past his prime. But he was the worst of America’s enemies in the region. The Islamic Republic was born in bloodshed and terror under the regime’s founder and Khamenei’s predecessor, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. But it was Khamenei who solidified the regime’s grip on power, making its terror a permanent fixture in the Middle East and beyond for years.
Khamenei was the figurehead for the most virulently anti-American regime in recent history. His death and the regime’s possible fall are historic. The 1979 Islamic Revolution, such as the communist revolutions in Cuba, China, and Russia before it, forever changed the world, ushering in an age of terror, chaos, and upheaval that transformed the region.
By showing that a secular regime could be toppled and replaced by an Islamic theocracy, Khomeini and his followers inspired a generation of jihadists, future al-Qaeda leaders Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri among them. The Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the subsequent decadeslong Global War on Terror that followed are a direct offshoot of what unfolded nearly fifty years ago. In a very real sense, the decades of U.S. military involvement in the Middle East are directly linked to what Khomeini and his ilk inaugurated.
With Khamenei’s death and the possible fall of the regime, the U.S. and the world are now poised to finally turn the page.
The Iranian regime was built on blood and calls for “Death to America” and “Death to Israel.” But it was a joint U.S.-Israeli military operation that may seal its fate. The U.S. has not cooperated as closely with any ally in a theater of war in decades, if ever. These were “coordinated operations of an unprecedented scale,” Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said.
The Trump administration has rightly called on allies to step up and carry more of the defense burden. The administration’s 2026 National Defense Strategy highlighted Israel as a “model ally.” Operation Epic Fury showcases why, building off the stunning capabilities demonstrated by Israel in June 2025. A regime that murdered thousands of Americans is being buried under rubble.
THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC HAD ITS CHANCE
Preliminary reports indicate that Israel may have even used Iron Beam, an advanced laser system, to shoot down missiles. Israel has long been at the forefront of pioneering and fielding new defense technologies and comments from the Pentagon indicate that there might be more to come. “There were,” Caine told reporters, “several combat firsts” which will be elaborated on at a “later date.”
Epic Fury is different in another respect, as well. While the scope and scale are large and ambitious, both President Trump and Secretary of War Hegseth have rejected speculation that the U.S. is going to find itself in another attempt at nation-building and democracy promotion. As Hegseth said, “Our ambitions are not utopian.” This is fitting. After all, the Middle East is not a part of the world that inspires optimism.
Yet wars have a logic of their own. If, as the saying goes, no plan survives first contact with the enemy, flexibility and dexterity will be key. As Dwight Eisenhower famously observed: “Every war will astonish you.” That much, at least, is certain.