The February 28 US-Israeli military operation against Iran - dubbed Operation Epic Fury - has fundamentally broken the pattern set by last year's strikes, leaving Washington without a clear path to deescalation. Unlike Operation Midnight Hammer in June 2025, which targeted three key nuclear facilities with well-defined objectives, the latest assault hit hundreds of sites and killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei along with his family and key advisers.
Ali Vaez, Director of the Iran Project at the International Crisis Group, argues in Foreign Affairs that the operation has "opened a Pandora's Box, with no clear objective within reach nor any clear path to deescalation," as reported by "Hvylya".
The contrast between the two operations is stark. Midnight Hammer was "bold but limited," with Iran's retaliatory strike on an evacuated US base in Qatar communicated in advance. Both sides carefully avoided an escalatory cycle. The objectives were clear, the sites familiar to military planners, and the off-ramp was built into the operation itself.
Epic Fury offers no such architecture. Before the strikes, Tehran had warned it would retaliate - a threat that now backs the regime into a corner. Even in its weakened state, Iran retains formidable lethal power. Since last June, it has moved to rebuild its ballistic missile arsenal at what an Israeli military assessment described as "a rapid pace." It can fire hundreds of missiles at US bases, interests, and allies, and activate the remnants of its regional proxy network.
The risk calculus has shifted dramatically. Where Midnight Hammer produced a contained exchange and a return to tense stability, Epic Fury has launched a sequence with no foreseeable endpoint. Iran is already firing retaliatory salvos against Israel and US bases in the Gulf states, and neither side has an obvious reason to stop first.
Also read: CIA Mapped Out Post-War Iran Scenarios - None Came With High Confidence