A direct account of a sweeping military operation that toppled Iran’s leadership, the catastrophic retaliatory strikes on Gulf states, and how those events reshaped regional alignments and U.S. policy choices.
American and Israeli forces carried out Operation Epic Fury in broad daylight, striking 24 of Iran’s 31 provinces and hitting military, naval, and nuclear centers with precision. The attacks killed Supreme Leader Khamenei, at least 40 senior regime figures, and thousands of soldiers while sinking 17 naval vessels and knocking out the nuclear program and missile headquarters before noon. The operation effectively decapitated a regime 47 years in the making.
Iran’s response was predictable and self-defeating: instead of striking Israel, Tehran launched hundreds of ballistic missiles and drones at Gulf states hosting American forces. The targets included the UAE, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Oman, and the strikes aimed to create panic and force Washington to flinch. That decision turned a military setback into a political collapse for Tehran’s regional strategy.
The physical damage in the Gulf was severe and immediate. Dubai International Airport halted flights, stranding 20,000 travelers and producing losses around $100 million a day, while fires at Jebel Ali port disrupted roughly 20 percent of regional container traffic and pushed shipping rates up 15 percent. Debris from Iranian drones killed a civilian in Abu Dhabi and the Burj Al Arab suffered damage amid the chaos.
The political fallout was even worse for Iran. Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, and Jordan publicly condemned Iran while missiles were still in flight and made clear they would coordinate defense and response. Bahrain, host to the U.S. Fifth Fleet, asserted its right to act alongside allies, and the Emirates confirmed a civilian death and reserved the right to escalate. No Gulf state called out the U.S. strikes; none demanded a ceasefire in Tehran’s favor.
That reaction exposed the strategic miscalculation at the heart of Tehran’s gamble. Iran’s leadership had hoped mass terror would fracture Washington’s alliances and protect the revolution. Instead, the Gulf states rallied away from Tehran and toward deeper cooperation with the U.S. and one another. The region that had hesitated now has to choose sides.
To see how consequential this moment is, look back at the Obama-era embrace of diplomacy as the corrective to Iran’s nuclear drive. Barack Obama pushed the idea that economic ties and engagement could moderate the regime, a project given form by the JCPOA. He stood in Cairo in June 2009 and offered Iran a hand. “A New Beginning,” he called it, a path to “its rightful place in the community of nations.”
The premise was flawed from the start because Iran is not a normal state actor but a revolutionary theocracy whose legitimacy depends on perpetual hostility to America and Israel. “Death to America” isn’t a negotiating posture. It’s a founding charter. Concessions were read as weakness and used to fund proxies, arm militias, and export violence across the Middle East.
Concrete proof of Tehran’s bad faith kept accumulating. In 2022, the Justice Department indicted an Iranian operative for plotting to assassinate former National Security Advisor John Bolton — on American soil. That is the regime men like Ben Rhodes, Antony Blinken, and Jake Sullivan spent years trying to rehabilitate through re-engagement.
Contrast that with the Trump-era maximum pressure strategy, which intentionally squeezed Tehran’s finances and choke-pointed its proxies. Iranian oil exports cratered, proxy financing dried up, and the Abraham Accords normalized relations between Israel and the UAE, Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco. Saudi Arabia was moving toward normalization as well, all achieved without paying Tehran a single dollar.
Then the Biden team reversed course, reopening talks on a revived nuclear deal in April 2021 and easing pressure. That pivot helped the proxies rearm, allowed Hezbollah to rebuild, and let the Houthis escalate. The results were predictable: America’s partners watched Washington reopen the door to Tehran and recalibrated their trust accordingly, stalling the Accords’ further expansion.
Regional alignment shifted faster than diplomats expected because the Gulf states saw the consequences physically and politically. The comparison to past near-misses in diplomacy is stark: Bill Clinton had Israelis and Palestinians in the same room at Camp David in July 2000 and brought them to the edge of a deal; Yasser Arafat walked. Clinton later told him directly: it was his fault. This moment involves an entire region, not just two parties.
Inside Iran, the rupture created openings long denied to oppressed minorities. The Kurdish and Baluch populations, long brutalized by the regime, have formed unified political coalitions and are now considering new options. “It is time to seize control of your destiny,” said the Trump message to the Iranian people, and those words may matter more now than anything Washington has said in decades.
Nothing is guaranteed in the fog of war; chaos and risk are real. But the alignment of incentives across the Gulf has changed in a once-in-a-generation way. The policy debate has shifted from appeasement and accommodation to deterrence and alliance-building, and the choices made now will echo for decades.
