The United States and Israel launched simultaneous but independently commanded military operations against Iran on February 28, 2026, marking the most significant combined Western military action in the Middle East since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The U.S. campaign, dubbed “Operation Epic Fury,” and Israel’s “Operation Roaring Lion” struck nearly 900 targets in the first 12 hours alone, killing Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and dozens of senior military figures in what amounts to a full-scale campaign aimed at regime change and the destruction of Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs. The scale is staggering. As of early March 2026, U.S.
Central Command reported striking more than 3,000 targets, while Israel reported dropping more than 5,000 munitions. Strikes have been recorded in at least 26 of Iran’s 31 provinces, with Tehran absorbing the heaviest bombardment. Iran reports 1,255 killed and roughly 10,000 injured, claiming most casualties are civilians. The UN estimates at least 330,000 people have been displaced across the broader Middle East. This article breaks down how the two operations are structured, what each country is targeting, the humanitarian toll, Iran’s retaliation efforts, and what the shift to “Phase Two” means for the region.
Table of Contents
- How Are U.S. and Israeli Operations Inside Iran Coordinated Yet Separate?
- What Has Operation Epic Fury Destroyed and What Are Its Limits?
- The Humanitarian Cost and Civilian Casualty Dispute
- Iran’s Retaliation and the Regional Escalation Calculus
- Phase Two and the Problem of Endgame Planning
- The Domestic Political Landscape
- What Comes Next for the Middle East
- Conclusion
- Frequently Asked Questions
How Are U.S. and Israeli Operations Inside Iran Coordinated Yet Separate?
The distinction between “coordinated” and “joint” matters here. Operation Epic Fury and Operation Roaring Lion operate under entirely separate command structures. The israeli Defense Forces run their own targeting, sortie planning, and intelligence cycles. U.S. forces operate under CENTCOM authority. But the two campaigns are tightly coordinated on target selection, geographic sectors, and mission timing to avoid duplication and, critically, to avoid friendly fire incidents in an extraordinarily congested battlespace. In practice, this means Israel has focused its operations on western and central Iran, concentrating on decapitation strikes against senior political and military leadership, suppression of Iran’s air defense networks, and intelligence collection. The U.S.
has taken responsibility for other parts of the country, with a particular emphasis on destroying Iran’s naval capabilities and striking additional military infrastructure. This geographic and functional division is similar in concept to how NATO allies divided responsibilities in the 2011 Libya campaign, though the Iran operation is far larger in scale. The coordination was evident from the opening hours. On February 28, the Israeli Air Force deployed approximately 200 fighter jets in what has been described as its largest combat sortie in history, striking 500 military targets in western and central Iran. Simultaneously, U.S. forces hit targets across other regions. The synchronized timing was designed to overwhelm Iran’s air defenses before they could mount an organized response. By March 3, Israel conducted a separate air operation targeting the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting headquarters in Tehran, a move clearly aimed at disrupting the regime’s ability to communicate with its population and project control.
What Has Operation Epic Fury Destroyed and What Are Its Limits?
CENTCOM’s reported tally of more than 3,000 targets struck as of March 7 includes missiles, air defense systems, military installations, naval assets, and command-and-control infrastructure. The stated objectives are explicit: regime change and the permanent elimination of Iran’s nuclear program and ballistic missile capability. The CSIS analysis of Operation Epic Fury specifically examines the campaign’s effectiveness against what remains of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, suggesting that while significant damage has been inflicted, completely eliminating a nuclear program that has been dispersed and hardened over decades is an enormously difficult undertaking. However, the gap between destroying military hardware and achieving regime change is vast. The killing of Khamenei and senior military figures in the opening strikes removed the top of Iran’s command structure, but Iran’s government is a layered bureaucracy with redundancies built in precisely for this scenario. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has a deep bench of commanders, and the clerical establishment extends well beyond any single leader.
History suggests that decapitation strikes can create chaos but do not by themselves produce regime collapse. The 2003 Iraq experience, where the rapid military victory gave way to years of insurgency and institutional vacuum, looms as the obvious cautionary comparison. There is also the question of what “destruction of the nuclear program” means in practice. Iran’s nuclear knowledge base is distributed across thousands of scientists and engineers. Physical infrastructure can be rebuilt. Unless the campaign is paired with a sustained ground presence or a political settlement that creates incentives for a successor government to abandon nuclear ambitions, the military strikes may delay rather than end the program.
The Humanitarian Cost and Civilian Casualty Dispute
Iran’s government reports 1,255 killed and approximately 10,000 injured, claiming the majority are civilians. These figures are contested. The U.S. and Israel maintain they are striking military targets with precision munitions, and both governments have disputed the civilian casualty claims. Independent verification is extremely difficult given that international media access inside Iran is severely restricted, and Iran’s own reporting has obvious incentive to inflate civilian numbers for international sympathy. What is not in dispute is the displacement. The UN estimates at least 330,000 people have been displaced across the Middle East, a figure that includes not only Iranians but populations in neighboring countries affected by the broader regional escalation.
More than 200 people have been killed in Lebanon from related fighting, and at least 13 have been killed in Israel and 8 U.S. soldiers have died. Fourteen fatalities have been reported in Gulf states. The ACLED special issue for March 2026 tracks the geographic spread of violence across the region. The strikes across 26 of 31 Iranian provinces raise particular concerns. When a campaign covers that much of a country’s territory, the distinction between military and civilian infrastructure becomes harder to maintain in practice, regardless of stated intent. Power grids, water treatment facilities, communications networks, and transportation infrastructure serve both military and civilian purposes. The pattern of previous air campaigns in Iraq, Serbia, and Libya suggests that prolonged bombing inevitably degrades civilian infrastructure even when it is not directly targeted.
Iran’s Retaliation and the Regional Escalation Calculus
Iran has not absorbed these strikes passively. Retaliatory missile and drone strikes have targeted U.S. embassies, military installations, and oil infrastructure across the Middle East, including attacks on vessels in the Strait of Hormuz. The Strait is the chokepoint through which roughly 20 percent of the world’s oil supply passes, and any sustained disruption there has immediate global economic consequences. The targeting of Gulf state assets has also drawn countries like Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Bahrain deeper into the conflict whether they want to be involved or not. The tradeoff facing U.S. and Israeli planners is straightforward but difficult. More aggressive strikes reduce Iran’s ability to retaliate but increase civilian casualties and international opposition.
A more measured approach preserves legitimacy but gives Iran time to disperse its remaining assets, dig in, and sustain a longer retaliatory campaign. The 8 U.S. soldiers killed and 14 dead in Gulf states demonstrate that Iran retains the ability to inflict costs even while absorbing massive punishment. The question is whether Iran’s retaliatory capacity degrades faster than international tolerance for the campaign erodes. There is a meaningful difference between Iran’s retaliatory strikes and its pre-war capabilities. Before February 28, Iran possessed one of the largest ballistic missile arsenals in the Middle East. The opening phase of Epic Fury and Roaring Lion specifically targeted those assets. But Iran also operates through proxy networks in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen, and those networks are harder to neutralize through air power alone. The more than 200 deaths in Lebanon suggest these proxy forces are already activating.
Phase Two and the Problem of Endgame Planning
Reports indicate the campaign is shifting to “Phase Two,” with expanded objectives beyond the initial strike phase. The Debrief’s reporting on this transition suggests the next stage involves consolidation of air superiority, continued degradation of Iranian military capacity, and potentially setting conditions for some form of ground operation or political transition. The details remain classified, but the language around “expanded objectives” is worth scrutinizing closely. The fundamental warning here is that every major U.S. military campaign since Korea has had a Phase One that went roughly according to plan and subsequent phases that did not. The initial air campaign against Iraq in 1991 was a textbook success. The 2003 invasion achieved its immediate military objectives in weeks.
In both cases, the harder questions about what comes after military victory proved far more costly and difficult than the fighting itself. Iran is a country of 88 million people with mountainous terrain, a sophisticated security apparatus, and a national identity built partly on resistance to foreign intervention. Phase Two planning that does not account for these realities risks repeating familiar mistakes at enormous scale. The absence of a clearly articulated political endgame is the single most important gap in public information about this campaign. Regime change is an objective, not a plan. Who governs Iran after the current regime falls? How is order maintained in a country four times the size of Iraq? What prevents the nuclear program from being reconstituted by a successor government? These are not hypothetical concerns. They are the questions that determine whether a military campaign produces lasting strategic gains or a prolonged quagmire.
The Domestic Political Landscape
Within the United States, the operation has intensified an already polarized debate about executive war powers. The scale of Operation Epic Fury, involving thousands of strikes across a sovereign nation with the stated goal of regime change, raises significant questions about congressional authorization under the War Powers Act. Previous administrations have stretched the boundaries of executive authority for targeted strikes and limited operations, but a campaign of this magnitude aimed explicitly at toppling a government pushes into territory that traditionally requires congressional approval. Public opinion remains deeply divided.
Supporters argue that Iran’s nuclear ambitions and its network of regional proxies posed an unacceptable threat that diplomatic efforts failed to resolve. Critics counter that the campaign was launched without adequate congressional debate, that the humanitarian costs are disproportionate, and that the lack of a clear post-conflict plan risks creating a power vacuum that could prove more dangerous than the regime it replaces. The 8 U.S. military deaths, while relatively low for an operation of this scale, have already generated intense scrutiny about the campaign’s necessity and objectives.
What Comes Next for the Middle East
The trajectory of this conflict will be shaped by several factors that remain uncertain: whether Iran’s remaining military and political leadership can sustain organized resistance, whether proxy forces in Lebanon, Iraq, and Yemen escalate their own operations, how Gulf states respond to continued attacks on their territory, and whether international diplomatic pressure forces any modification of U.S. and Israeli objectives. The UN displacement figure of 330,000 will almost certainly grow, and the economic disruption from Strait of Hormuz instability will ripple through global energy markets for months regardless of the military outcome.
The broader precedent is also significant. A successful U.S.-Israeli campaign that achieves regime change in Iran would fundamentally reshape the Middle Eastern security order that has existed since the 1979 revolution. It would also establish a precedent for large-scale military action against a nuclear-threshold state, with implications for how other countries, particularly North Korea, assess their own security. Whether that reshaping produces stability or a new and more dangerous set of conflicts is the question that will define this region for the next decade.
Conclusion
The U.S. and Israel are conducting the largest coordinated military campaign in the Middle East in over two decades, with separate command structures but tightly aligned targeting across Iranian territory. The numbers tell part of the story: more than 3,000 U.S. targets struck, more than 5,000 Israeli munitions dropped, at least 1,255 reported dead in Iran, 330,000 displaced, and fighting recorded across 26 of 31 Iranian provinces. The killing of Khamenei in the opening strikes removed Iran’s supreme leader but did not end the conflict. The harder part lies ahead.
Phase Two’s expanded objectives will test whether air power and decapitation strikes can achieve regime change in a country of 88 million people, or whether this campaign follows the pattern of previous Middle Eastern interventions where military success gave way to political quagmire. The humanitarian toll is mounting, regional escalation continues, and the absence of a publicly articulated post-conflict plan remains the most concerning gap in the entire enterprise. For American taxpayers and policymakers, the central question is not whether the U.S. military can destroy Iranian targets. It clearly can. The question is what comes after.
Frequently Asked Questions
When did the U.S. and Israeli operations against Iran begin?
Both Operation Epic Fury (U.S.) and Operation Roaring Lion (Israel) launched simultaneously on February 28, 2026, with nearly 900 strikes in the first 12 hours.
Was Supreme Leader Khamenei killed in the strikes?
Yes. Ali Khamenei was killed along with dozens of senior military figures during the opening phase of strikes on February 28, 2026.
How many targets have been struck so far?
As of approximately March 7, CENTCOM reported striking more than 3,000 targets. Israel reported dropping more than 5,000 munitions since the campaign began. Strikes have been recorded in at least 26 of Iran’s 31 provinces.
What are the stated objectives of the campaign?
The stated objectives are regime change in Iran and the destruction of Iran’s nuclear program and ballistic missile capability.
How has Iran responded to the strikes?
Iran has launched retaliatory missile and drone strikes targeting U.S. embassies, military installations, and oil infrastructure throughout the Middle East, including attacks on vessels in the Strait of Hormuz.
What are the reported casualty figures?
Iran reports 1,255 killed and approximately 10,000 injured, claiming most are civilians. At least 8 U.S. soldiers, 13 people in Israel, 14 in Gulf states, and more than 200 in Lebanon have been killed. The UN estimates at least 330,000 people have been displaced across the Middle East.