Opinion- Operation Epic Fury or Operation Epic Fail?

Written by Misha Mehrfar

Edited by Rebecca Oxtot and Francesca Howard

Image under Public Domain

On June 17, 2026, President Trump arrived at King Louis’ famed Palace of Versailles to sign a “Memorandum of Understanding” with the Islamic Republic of Iran. Celebrations rang out in Paris as Trump touted his deal as an end to the conflict and the start of a new era of American-Iranian relations. And while Washington celebrated the deal, the opinions of many worldwide told a completely different story. 

It was never really fully clear to me what the ultimate objectives of Operation Epic Fury really were. There was, of course, a desire to decapitate Iran’s nuclear abilities, something we’ve heard about for years. The Israeli-Lebanon war raging on certainly did no favors for the Iranians as they supported their proxy, Hezbollah, there. Even though the United States had reportedly destroyed large parts of the nuclear program last June, this was still an objective. However, somewhere along the way there was clearly an implicit belief that the Islamic regime could be overthrown in Iran, a much larger objective. The Operation came at an interesting time. A couple months earlier, Iranians had taken to the streets en-mass to protest their economic state, and later their government. Chants of “Javid Shah” - “Long Live the Shah,” echoed throughout the streets of Tehran. President Trump’s now infamous message to the Iranian people to “take over your institutions” seems to corroborate the idea that regime change was discussed, at least in the back of Washington’s mind. The American-Israeli operation to eliminate Ali Khamenei on the first day of the war, along with over 70 top Iranian officials, further strengthening the argument. It seems to me that the American and Israeli officials never specifically said they wanted to overthrow the regime, whether because they didn’t know if they could do it or because they didn’t want the enemy to know their plans, but it was still a goal that they hoped to reach. 

What’s worse, to me, is that after it was clear the Iranian regime would likely not fall in this war, the administration still tried to claim that they did “regime change,” - by killing an 86 year old leader and replacing him with his son, and by replacing hardline Shia clerics in the government with… hardline Shia clerics. To me, it seems like the administration had to address the persistence of the regime, and chose to act as if they had achieved some sort of change to divert attention away from the failure. At the start of war, I was all for going in and taking Iran on militarily. Trump had actually had a pretty good track record on foreign policy intervention. He specialized in short, powerful conflicts, or “Peace Through Strength” as he calls it. The capture of Maduro and the June 2025 Iran operation are clear examples of this. For a while, Trump was actually feared by many world leaders for his ability to exert power and act efficiently on foreign policy. Now, though, the outlook is different. The many empty threats of Trump to “destroy a civilization” and destroy Iran’s nuclear program never came to fruition. Rather than being taken seriously, Trump is being laughed at by the Iranians. 

And were the other objectives even reached? Sure, Iran’s nuclear capabilities may be hindered. Though we were told Iran was “weeks away” from a nuclear weapon, I am not so convinced. We were told their capabilities were destroyed in last June’s strikes, though later assessments did not show the same damage Trump touted for the past year. While enriched uranium does exist in Iran still, I will grant that their ability to turn it into nuclear weapons is probably close to zero at this point. A bigger concern, in my opinion, than nukes for Iran, are their proxies. And they’re still standing strong. Hamas is weakened but still exists. Hezbollah, on the other hand, is fighting a pretty brutal war against Israeli forces, and, thanks to their drone technologies, have not decisively lost yet. Israel has not gained much ground against them, and a new survey indicated 57% of Israelis do not even believe they have won a war since October 2023. I am a big proponent of Israel annexing Southern Lebanon up to the Litani River, but even in Israel this has caused controversy, not to mention causing tension in Israeli-American relations. 

All of this is to say that Operation Epic Fury was clearly not a success in its long term goals. I believe it was planned out very badly and acted on impulsively. Rather than setting clear goals at the beginning and using the American-Israeli joint military capabilities to achieve them, it looks like the governments just decided to attack hard, hope it works, and see how it goes from there. I also believe that Trump seriously underestimated the Iranian capabilities due to his success in Venezuela. As Trump himself said recently, “[The] ideology of Muslims is slightly different than Catholics.” As I have written about previously, religion truly does play a huge role in geopolitics today, whether people admit it or not. The clerics who run the Iranian regime truly believe they are doing what G-d wants them to do, and will be rewarded if they die as martyrs in battle. They will not simply surrender or give up to save their country.  

While Iran has certainly been weakened physically and militarily from the war, it was not to the extent that the United States wanted to or could have weakened them. The lack of ambition to “complete the job” seemed to have backfired. The dealmaking process is still ongoing between the parties, and we will have to wait and see what the ultimate deal will be. Ultimately, whether we can call Operation Epic Fury a complete success or complete failure is a complex argument that will need time. My forecast is more pessimistic than optimistic, however.