The central failure of Operation Epic Fury is strategic. Five weeks in, neither of its declared objectives – regime change as framed by U.S. President Donald Trump, nor the elimination of an existential threat as framed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – is within reach. The Strait of Hormuz remains effectively closed. Iran’s leadership has reconstituted under Mojtaba Khamenei. The diplomatic track that might have constrained escalation has been shattered.
What has emerged instead is not a transition from war to peace, but a system of managed instability in which disruption itself has become Iran’s most effective and durable form of power. The war has not resolved the Iran problem. It has fundamentally transformed it by converting a containable challenge into a more distributed, persistent, and system-level disorder.
Photo by Daniel Torok via White House
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