Two weeks into Operation Epic Fury, the dominant narrative has settled into a comfortable groove: the United States stumbled into a war without a plan, Iran is retaliating across the region, and the world faces another Middle Eastern quagmire. This narrative is wrong, according to a defense analyst writing from Doha, where Iranian missiles have triggered shelter alerts and Qatar Airways has launched evacuation flights.

Muhanad Seloom, who has worked for the US Department of State and advised defense agencies in multiple countries, laid out his case in Al Jazeera, as "Hvylya" reports.

"The critics are treating the costs of action as if the costs of inaction were zero," Seloom wrote. "They were not." Iran entered 2026 with 440 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60 percent purity - enough for as many as 10 nuclear weapons. Before the strikes, Tehran was less than two weeks from bomb-grade enrichment. Every year of strategic patience added centrifuges and kilograms to the stockpile. The status quo that critics implicitly prefer produced the crisis everyone claims to fear.

Seloom acknowledged the campaign's costs are real. More than 1,400 civilians have been killed in Iran. Oil price spikes are hurting every economy on earth. At least 11 US service members have died. Trump's oscillation between "unconditional surrender" and hints at negotiation has fed the impression of strategic incoherence - only 33 percent of Americans in a recent Reuters-Ipsos poll said the president had clearly explained the mission's purpose.

But the critics, Seloom argued, are "measuring the wrong things." They are cataloguing the price of the campaign while ignoring the strategic ledger. Seventeen days in, Iran's supreme leader is dead, his successor reportedly wounded, and every principal instrument of power projection - missiles, nuclear infrastructure, air defenses, the navy, proxy command networks - has been "degraded beyond near-term recovery."

The most legitimate criticism, Seloom conceded, is the absence of a post-conflict framework. What prevents Iran from restarting production? The answer requires a verification regime, a diplomatic settlement or a sustained enforcement posture that the administration has not yet articulated. But this gap represents "a sequencing problem, not a strategic one" - the military conditions for a durable settlement are being created in real time.

Also read: Trump's Regime Change Bet in Iran Backfires: What the Streets of Tehran Revealed.