Historian Niall Ferguson joins The Free Press to analyze the joint US-Israeli military operation against Iran launched on February 28, 2026. In his assessment, the strikes aim not merely to destroy military infrastructure but to decapitate the regime in hopes of sparking a revolution from within. Yet Ferguson's most urgent warning isn't about Tehran: America simply cannot manage Europe, the Middle East, and Asia simultaneously. While the world watches Iran, China is preparing to move on Taiwan, the war in Ukraine is far from over - and Washington's resources and attention are finite. Ferguson calls this "the three-body problem" - and concedes there is no solution.
Rafaela Siewert: Let's start with the basics. We're just hours into the US-Israeli joint military operation called Operation Epic Fury. What do we know so far? What happened overnight?
Niall Ferguson: We know that the diplomatic maneuvers of the last couple of weeks were maskirovka - not likely to produce a real diplomatic compromise. I've been clear about this for some time because it was obvious that the Iranians were not prepared to yield on the key demands being made by President Trump's negotiators - Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, not forgetting Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who has also been involved. What they had said was: you need to give up enriching uranium and hand over your weapons-grade uranium; you need to end your ballistic missiles program; and thirdly, and least importantly, stop financing the terrorist proxies. That last point is less important because those proxies are so much weaker than they were at the time of October 7th, 2023. And the Iranians essentially said no. Although we were told by the Omani foreign minister and others that these negotiations were going somewhere, they weren't. When they ended in Geneva on Thursday and the Americans left, they were not intending to return.
What's happened - and of course we are now in the fog of war, so I have to speak with the caution of somebody observing this from outside the government - is that the United States and Israel have struck multiple targets in Iran, aiming at regime personnel as well as regime infrastructure. The early reports, including from Israeli sources, suggest that at least some influential figures in the Islamic Republic have been hit. A rumor is going around that they've got the Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei - that is not confirmed.
But that tells us what the goal of Operation Epic Fury and the Israeli counterpart Roaring Lion is - to decapitate the Islamic Republic. And to hope that out of that decapitation can come a revolution in Iran. A new regime, but not a regime imposed by the United States and Israel - a regime that Iranians will create for themselves in the conditions being created by these strikes.
Targeting private residences and military assets
Rafaela Siewert: Just to make sure the listener is following along - you're saying that they've targeted both private residences of high-ranking regime officials and political leaders, as well as military assets. Is that right?
Niall Ferguson: That is my understanding, but I emphasize it's an ongoing operation at a relatively early stage, and all kinds of rumors are flying around. Actually, I think more important than that is the way the Iranian regime has responded. It's responded by retaliating against US targets in multiple Gulf states. I think six different Gulf states have been on the receiving end of Iranian missiles, or perhaps in some cases drones - it's not entirely clear.
That's remarkable in two respects. First, not much damage seems to have been done - again, fog of war, but that's my understanding - because most of these missiles have been intercepted and destroyed. Second, the Iranians are doing their level best to lose friends and alienate people by carrying out these attacks. Most of the Gulf states - Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar - do not want to be involved in this conflict and have done their best to emphasize their neutrality. Well, that's out the window. And it's pretty clear from the statement from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia that the Gulf Arabs are disgusted to find themselves under attack from Tehran. So whatever else is happening, we can see a certain desperation in the Iranian regime's response.
The Strait of Hormuz and oil
Rafaela Siewert: What are they targeting in these regional countries? US military bases? There's fear that oil fields will be struck. What do we know right now?
Niall Ferguson: We certainly know that they were trying to hit the US naval base in Bahrain. That must have been something the US anticipated, and I'd be surprised if significant damage was inflicted there. I haven't yet heard any reports of attacks on oil infrastructure, but it would be surprising if the Iranians didn't try.
Their most impactful response - the thing that would cause the most damage to the United States - would be if they could somehow block the Strait of Hormuz and entirely disrupt the huge flow of oil that goes through it. That would cause a big price spike in the oil market when trading gets going tomorrow. But we don't yet have any reports to suggest that's been attempted, much less succeeded.
Why this is in America's interest
Rafaela Siewert: I want to link this to a question coming from the audience right now. People look at this conflict, they see it as hundreds of miles away, they worry about an increase in oil prices. Someone asks: please help me explain to my 30-year-old son who works hard but cannot afford to buy even a small home, why the US leadership in overthrowing the Iranian government is putting America first. Why is this in America's interest?
Niall Ferguson: President Trump spelled out in his address last night that this is in some measure a preemptive act to stop Iran acquiring nuclear weapons, as well as a battery of missiles that can deliver them - not only locally in the Middle East but potentially further afield, potentially against European targets, as former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett pointed out in an interview earlier today.
I don't think anybody could claim the Iranians were about to strike heartland America. But President Trump and others have pointed out that Iran has been waging war against Americans - this regime has been waging war against Americans since 1979. And after half a century of being one of the worst actors in the world, President Trump has called time on it.
I think it's worth saying to any 30-year-old son, or indeed to teenage sons and daughters: Iran has been one of the world's principal sponsors of terrorism over this half century, and many American lives have been lost in every decade since then. The Iranians were responsible for many of the deaths in Iraq, and Iran was the principal sponsor of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad when they carried out the October 7th, 2023 attacks.
Part of the answer is that this regime was in the last chance saloon. When they slaughtered nearly 40,000 of their own people in early January, crushing popular protests, the Iranian leadership lost what little shreds of legitimacy they had left.
But there's another point not so explicitly emphasized by the president. The United States is sending a global signal. It sent it to the Venezuelans, it's sending it to the Iranians, but the real recipients are in Moscow and Beijing. The message is: do not mess with the United States. The United States has overwhelming military superiority, full spectrum dominance, and it will come for you if you cross its red lines. Americans need to recognize the extent to which the United States lost that credibility, particularly under Presidents Obama and Biden. Getting it back - getting America's reputation back for being a superpower you don't mess with - can save many American lives in the future.
An air campaign without a ground invasion
Rafaela Siewert: People wonder how an air campaign without American boots on the ground practically leads to regime change. Is the idea that these strikes destabilize the government and empower the people to overthrow it? How do you see it playing out?
Niall Ferguson: That is certainly the theory. The president drew a very clear distinction, although it was implicit. In 2003, in Operation Iraqi Freedom, the United States tried to give freedom - force it, you might say - on the Iraqi people by not only deposing Saddam Hussein but then trying to run Iraq and directly institute a democracy there. I think we would all agree the outcome was not ideal. Although Iraq today is much less of a threat than the Iraq of Saddam Hussein, it was still a very expensive undertaking that cost American lives and left many American soldiers badly injured and incapacitated.
So this is not what we're doing here. What we're doing is using air power to give the Iranian people a chance to take their own freedom - to seize it by overthrowing the theocratic regime that has ruled over them since 1979. Is it certain to work? No. Nobody can say with certainty that a people who just saw tens of thousands of presumably their bravest young people mown down in the streets of Tehran and other cities are going to try it again. You could get civil war, you could get complete chaos. That risk is there.
But I'll say something that I don't think is said often enough. People say this has never succeeded, that it's never really been attempted to change a regime with air power. That's true - because we've never had the kind of precision in air power that we now have. The most impressive thing about what we're seeing today, and what we saw last year when Israel and the United States struck Iran, is the incredible accuracy with which air power can take out the people who run this evil, murderous regime. You couldn't do that to, say, Berlin in 1944.
There are technological possibilities for exercising American power today that didn't previously exist, because of huge advances in the targeting of missiles and drones. That's why this has a better chance of working than many people realize. At some point this regime simply runs out of capacity to sustain its repressive system. President Trump is taking a gamble, no question - a gamble that he can tip over the Islamic Republic and have it change to something else. In this case we're not specifying what that something else is, whereas we tried to do that in Iraq after 2003 and didn't really succeed.
The biggest risk isn't in the Middle East
Rafaela Siewert: You've written about how great power conflicts can escalate beyond the original plan. We're talking about a potential power vacuum, balkanization amongst the ethnic groups within Iran, total chaos. What do you think is the biggest risk right now in the coming days and weeks?
Niall Ferguson: A lot of commentators, like me, are worrying about regional complications. For example, Yoav Gallant, the former Israeli defense minister, has written an excellent essay arguing that Turkey will take advantage of the power vacuum created by Iran's collapse, and that Turkey is no longer a reliable ally of the West or a friend of Israel. That's the kind of thing Middle Eastern politics experts will be discussing.
But my concern is global rather than regional. The United States, though it is the dominant military power in the world, can only do so many things at one time. It has three major claims on its attention beyond the Western Hemisphere, where some elements in President Trump's administration want to focus.
There is Europe, where a war is raging in Ukraine, the outcome of which we do not know and the end of which is not yet in sight. There's the Middle East itself, which is what we're here to talk about. And there's the Far East. We have to bear in mind that in this axis of authoritarians - China, Russia, Iran, not forgetting North Korea - by far the most powerful is China, economically and technologically. And while we are dealing with first Venezuela and then Iran, and potentially also trying to bring about peace in Ukraine, China is preparing to make some kind of move against Taiwan. And that is the biggest danger I see: our attention is once again focused on the Middle East, as it has been so often in our lifetimes, and that is going to create an opportunity - perhaps not this year but perhaps next year - for Xi Jinping to make a move against Taiwan that would be enormously consequential for the global balance of power.
The three-body problem
Rafaela Siewert: Do you see us looped into a conflict that far into the distance that it would impact Xi's thinking in terms of invading Taiwan?
Niall Ferguson: There's no question that this is the risk weighing on the mind of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dan Caine. We know that one of his complaints about the administration's recent strategic focus on the Western Hemisphere was that it understated the threat posed by China. And he's right, because China is the one real rival that the United States needs to fear.
China has now built a navy that in terms of number of vessels is as big as the US Navy, arguably bigger. China has the capabilities in its vast array of missiles to sink our aircraft carriers, take out satellite communications, take out bases in Guam with hypersonic missiles. China is a far, far bigger threat to the United States than Iran or Russia, much less Venezuela.
The United States is playing a global geopolitical game. I call it the three-body problem, where there are three parts of the world that draw the United States in: Europe, the Middle East, and the Far East. This has been true for more than a century. And it is very, very hard to play successfully in all three theaters at the same time. In fact, it would be impossible for the United States to cope simultaneously with crises in Europe, the Middle East, and the Far East - and everybody knows this.
Remember, it was only a few years ago, when he was running the Central Intelligence Agency, that Bill Burns said Xi Jinping had told China's military leaders to be ready for war in 2027. Reminder: that's next year.
Rafaela Siewert: Niall, thank you so much for joining us and bringing so much sense-making to an unfolding situation and potentially a budding war. You can read his analysis in The Free Press later today. Thank you for being here.
Niall Ferguson: Been my pleasure.