<![CDATA[Ayatollah Ali Khamenei]]><![CDATA[Department of War]]><![CDATA[Donald Trump]]><![CDATA[Iran]]><![CDATA[Operation Epic Fury]]>Featured

I Got Him Before He Got Me. They Tried Twice. Well, I Got Him First. – HotAir

March 2, 2026
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Trump, Bibi Shown Photo – HotAir
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I’m old enough to remember when we were promised by then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and his commander-in-chief, George W. Bush, that when the fireworks began in Baghdad, launching the Iraqi phase of the Global War on Terror, you’d know it by the shock and awe of it all. 

That was March 19th, 2003. And it was shock and awe. The true number is classified to this day, but that wave of strikes conducted on targets in the Saddam Hussein Baathist regime of Iraq numbered around 300 and covered an area roughly a third of the size of what was undertaken over this weekend. It was shock and awe, but Hussein survived the initial hit, as did many of his most trusted loyalists. It took nine months to finally pull the Iraqi despot out of his spider hole. Nine months. 

All day Friday, beginning with his brief White House lawn gaggle, and then continuing with remarks to the press while at a rally in Texas, Donald Trump’s rhetoric regarding negotiations with the Iranians had taken a very sharp turn. Instead of saying they want to make a deal and leaving the rest hanging in the air like an Iranian dissident, he began to speak in terms like, ‘it would be nice to not have to use the military, but sometimes, you have to use it.’ It was not hard to predict that the curtain was going to rise on kinetic action very, very soon. 

The Iranian regime has been so thoroughly compromised by Israeli and American intelligence that an opportunity arose sooner than expected, and the American and Israeli forces were nimble enough to capitalize on it very late in the evening Friday/Saturday in the States, mid-morning Tehran time. 

The American military owns the night. This has been a truism for a few generations of war fighters. We operate at night better than any military on Earth ever has. Everyone outside of the President’s decision loop expected the action to begin in the middle of the night in Iran, including Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his military commanders. But Trump patiently waited for the right moment of opportunity, and he was rewarded for that patience. 

Believing that since they saw sunrise on Saturday meant they had at least until nightfall Saturday night to meet, plan, and then get some rest, Khamenei and much of his leadership in the IRGC and Basij forces met at his compound at the same time. Why? Well, those thanks go to the Israelis, who infected the Iranians with what would become terminal paranoia about being tracked by mobile devices, or worse, blown up remotely by mobile devices. Technology was no longer trusted, so they went back to what they figured was a more secure method of communication – face to face. They apparently had no idea that they were being watched and tracked in real time. 

Not one, not two, but thirty pieces of ordinance that go boom were dropped on the Khamenei compound in the first wave of Shock and Awe II: Shockier and Much More Awesome. Thirty. And the eyes and ears on the ground were so prevalent that the photographic proof of the Supreme Leader’s dead body had reached Jerusalem and Washington, and then the rest of the world, before the Iranians could find somebody who knew someone who had once met someone else they believed was once in the chain of command somewhere. 

Five hundred distinct targets were struck from land, sea, and air over a surface area roughly the size of Alaska. By mid-day Sunday, that number of targets had reached well over 1,000. The U.S. claims to have sunk nine ships in Iran’s Navy. Mobile missile launchers were quickly targeted and dispatched by the hundreds. Iranian inventories of F-4’s and drones dwindled with each precision strike. By Sunday night, American B-2’s had come calling to blow up several underground ballistic missile storage bays. 

Estimates are early and often subject to correction, but the numbers being thrown around now are that roughly half of Iran’s entire ballistic missile capability, between last summer’s Operation Midnight Hammer and this weekend’s opening salvo of Operation Epic Fury, is no more. 





Hezbollah in Southern Lebanon made the wrong decision to get involved, launching rockets at Israel from their north. That’s about when the Israelis let the world know they have a new toy. Say hello to Iron Beam. 

What Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’ regency routinely fact-checked as “conspiracy theory” became reality as the Israelis deployed, successfully, a directed-energy weapon. Instead of spending a few million a pop on a missile to go up and do a bank shot off an inbound rocket, all you need now is a continued supply of electricity. This changes warfare exponentially. Suddenly, the specter of hypersonics doesn’t seem quite so scary if you know you can use the speed of light to take out bombs flying a few times the speed of sound. The last time I did the sciences, light trumps sound every time. 

And about 10 minutes after the wave of rockets was launched by Hezbollah, this happened. 

Among those killed in that strike, who will not be a factor going forward? This guy. 

And in an even more interesting development? Lebanon is arresting Hezbollah members. They do not want any part of this fight with Israel. 

The United States and Israel now enjoy air supremacy over Iran. There are no air defenses left. There are not really many people left to pull the trigger if there are any air defenses left. Is there still stuff left to blow up? Absolutely. But now it doesn’t matter whether it’s day or night. Sorties are being conducted just as soon as there is hard targeting information available for a strike. 

Here’s something that just blew up in the Kurdistan region while you were sleeping last night. 





The IRGC’s command and control? That’s pretty much gone now, too. 

Four Americans have been killed thus far, with double that number injured. In Kuwait, it three American F15 went down in an accidental case of friendly fire, but early indications are that both all six pilots parachuted out and are safe. Department of War Secretary Pete Hegseth and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Dan Caine held a press conference and had more details. As the President warned Friday night, there will inevitably be casualties, and he mentioned that again when giving an update to the nation Sunday night before returning to Washington. 

We owe a debt of gratitude to those four Americans who sacrificed it all, and to all those currently in harm’s way making the world immeasurably safer by removing the menace that is responsible for more American deaths in the last 25 years than any other state actor on the planet. 

In an interview on ABC News with Jonathan Karl, President Trump said two incredible things. First, when discussing what comes after the regime falls, he said the military campaign underway might have been too successful. 

You know you’ve had a good weekend when you’ve reduced your enemy down to around number 50 on the depth chart for leadership. Someone claiming to be in Iranian leadership now wants to talk with Trump. But if the top 50 cards in the deck have been taken out, maybe a second look at Reza Pahlavi? 

As for the killing of Ali Khameini, which The Atlantic, New York Times, and Washington Post all gave a eulogy more favorable than for Charlie Kirk, Donald Trump was ice cold. 

George W. Bush’s whole doctrine of preemption centered upon the notion that it’s better to engage and kill your enemies on their turf before they come to your turf to kill you. In short, kill them first. Thus far, mission accomplished.

There’s been a lot of doomer/panican reaction to Epic Fury, and it’s coming from marginal fringes on the far right. And if you ignore who’s saying them and just examine what they’re saying, it’s tying the ends of the ideological spectrum into a circle, and wrapping around to join the fever swamp on the left. To those marginal few who believe all is lost electorally because Donald Trump took this course of action, allow me to make some observations. 

1. I’m over all of the isolationist talk, sheep-dipped in antisemitism. What is going down in Iran has never been Israel’s war, though it became their war over time. This war being fought today began in February 1979 when Ayatollah Khomenei landed in Tehran, returning from exile to set up the Shiite theocracy. That war went kinetic nine months later when the U.S. Embassy was stormed, capturing 66 Americans and holding most of them captive for 444 days. The Embassy and Marine barracks bombings in Beirut in 1983 are just part of the Iranian terrorists’ handiwork. And don’t even get me started with the malign interference in both Afghanistan and Iraq, killing hundreds of Americans and maiming countless more. This has always been our war. It has been waged by Iran for 47 years, and we finally have an American president finally willing and able, thank God, to fight and win it on our terms. If you read or hear anyone saying Trump was forced into this by Israel, you’re being propagandized by an antisemite. Donald Trump did not start this, but he is committed to finishing it once and for all.  

2. I’m not about to throw in the towel on the Republicans’ chances for the midterms, not by a long shot. The isolationist doomers would have you believe that Republicans won’t be elected dog catcher for the next few cycles. Could that be the case? Of course. Will it? I doubt it. There is something more infectious in American politics than even COVID was, and that is winning decisively. Domestically, Trump and the Republicans have set up the economy to have an incredible year. Whether it’s tax refunds people will realize in a couple of months, lowering energy and housing prices, wages outpacing inflation once again, and private sector jobs strengthening month by month, if people feel like they’re better off than they were two years ago under the Biden Regency, that’s going to matter a great deal. 

And for all the talk that foreign policy intervention is always a loser, let me give you a microcosm of what’s happening in the wake of Epic Fury. 

In 2020, Iranian-Americans, many of whom either directly fled the theocracy in Tehran or are one generation removed, continued their trend of voting heavily Democratic. In that cycle, Iranian-Americans voted for Biden over Trump, 75-22%. Four years of Biden/Harris trying to save the Ayatollah’s brutal regime, restoring their cash flow with a flawed nuclear deal, dramatically changed the thinking of this voting bloc, and by 2024, Trump had an eight-point edge over Kamala Harris, 40-32%. 

Let me take you to the west side of Los Angeles, deep blue territory. This is Wilshire Blvd. on Sunday. 





You get a little better perspective with distance. 

Notice what’s interspersed with all those pre-theocracy Iranian flags. Jewish flags. Jews, shoulder-to-shoulder with Persians, celebrate together in the streets of Los Angeles. I was reliably told that would never happen. 

Even CBS, after unsuccessfully attempting to thwart a reporter from covering the rally because it would paint Trump’s actions in a positive light, had to relent. Here’s Tony Dokoupil:

This rally, consisting of tens of thousands of people on a very hot day here in the Southland, took place just a few miles from the antisemitic Jew hunts that were taking place on the campus of UCLA in Westwood in 2024. It’s literally a couple of miles from Kamala Harris’ mansion in Brentwood. What does Harris say about the weekend’s activities? 

She’s seen the maps, apparently. She’s opposed to regime change in Iran. She wishes Khameini were still there, brutalizing Iranians, rejecting women’s rights. She wishes the old status quo in the Middle East, that of Iran being the biggest malign influence in the region and a staunch ally of China and Russia, our two biggest enemies on the world stage, were not only left alone, but subsidized by a phony nuclear deal that was never respected by Khameini. 

Americans aren’t going to buy this garbage unless this Epic Fury becomes an epic quagmire and drags on all year. There’s no indication this is going to be anything like that. The President said on Friday night that this would go on for a few weeks, and he repeated that Sunday night. He knows exactly what targets have been crossed off the list and which ones haven’t. And once that list is checked off, we’re done, and we’ll work with the Iranians wanting reform to help make that happen. Military campaigns are always a big roll of the dice, but Trump is on a heck of a roll right now, and if he pulls this off, winning is very, very contagious at the ballot box. 

3. To those who either should or sadly do not know better, Trump laid out in his National Security Strategy last year why an operation like this is in our national interest. It removes instability in the region long-term, helps set up Israel, our most trusted ally, to be the regional hegemon, and simultaneously denies Russia drones and weapons supplies as well as oil exports below market value to China. Anytime you have the chance to take a regional menace off the map while weakening your two biggest adversaries at once, it’s a no-brainer. 

4. Yes, but we can’t afford it. This is another complaint after Epic Fury began. We’re almost $40 trillion in debt, and it’s not worth going into debt further for a war that wasn’t necessary right now, is a common complaint I read online over the weekend. I agree. We spend way too much money, and we are carrying way too much debt. You think we’re in trouble now? Tell me what kind of trouble we’d be in if we told the world we need to take a few decades off from leading internationally, because we have too many bills to pay. Who steps up, knowing that we’re too broke to act in our own interest? You think things are expensive now? Wait until the dollar is no longer the reserve currency in the world because we’ve declared international Chapter 11. 

If you want to do something about the debt, which I also want to see, do not vote for another Democrat,  ever. Republicans, while certainly not perfect in fiscal responsibility by any means, are pikers compared to Democratic spending when in power. They just aren’t. And if you keep Republicans in power, they get to continually appoint, and eventually replace Democratic judges who issue bench rulings blocking Republicans every time they do try to cut spending programs. And Republicans get braver in embracing reforms with greater numbers in their ranks. Fix what you can – the micro. Sitting on your hands in an election because you’re mad about the macro isn’t going to do anything except embolden the very people who exacerbated the debt crisis in the first place. 

5. Regardless of whether you’re for or against Trump’s decision on Iran, support the mission and support our troops. I didn’t agree with virtually anything Barack Obama said or did, but when he gave the go-ahead to kill Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan, I stood up and applauded him openly, because it was the right call. Democrats really had themselves a banger of a week last week. It began with dumping on the men’s Olympic hockey team because they went to the White House and hung out with Donald Trump, and it ended with them upset that Donald Trump took out Khameini. Let me state this unequivocally. You simply cannot envision a world that is better off with Ali Khameini in it. 

This is going to be a month ahead that will have lots of ups and downs. I am very sober-minded about the risk the men and women serving as the tip of the spear of American foreign policy are facing. Seeing the initial video of one of the F-15’s falling out of the sky serves as a reminder that this operation, wildly successful as it has been thus far, is not a video game. Things can go sideways in a hurry. I was heartened at another video that surfaced later showing Kuwaits racing across the desert to render aid and assistance to the American pilots, apologizing for the goof and supremely appreciative of the reason why they were there. 

But I am optimistic the successes will vastly outweigh the failures, because we have the best personnel and equipment in place, we have the right leadership in power to give them the rules of engagement to achieve their mission, and we have an advantage in tech no one else in the world can bring to bear as we can.  

The patriotic move is to support our military through it all. And if you’re the praying type, cover them, and our civilian leadership, in that prayer. 







Editor’s Note: For decades, former presidents have been all talk and no action. Now, Donald Trump is eliminating the threat from Iran once and for all.

Help us report the truth about the Trump administration’s decisive actions to keep Americans safe and bring peace to the world. Join Hot Air VIP and use promo code FIGHT to get 60% off your membership!





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