6 March 2026

We Bombed the Wrong Target

Joe Funderburke

In the predawn hours of February 28, 2026, Operation Epic Fury began. U.S. and Israeli forces struck targets across Tehran, Isfahan, Qom, Karaj, and Kermanshah, targeting nuclear infrastructure, missile production facilities, and the compound of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. The operation followed Operation Midnight Hammer from June 2025 and, as I argued in ‘The Gathering Storm,’ represented not a departure from the maximum pressure strategy but its logical culmination. Trump’s language had been unambiguous for weeks. The carriers were positioned. The F-22s had made their Atlantic transit. The decision, as a source told Iran International, had already been made.

But as smoke rose over Tehran and Iran launched retaliatory ballistic missiles at U.S. bases in Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, and the UAE, killing at least one civilian in Abu Dhabi and striking the Navy’s Fifth Fleet headquarters, a harder question emerged from the rubble: what happens next? The nuclear infrastructure may be damaged or destroyed. Khamenei may be dead or incapacitated. But the IRGC Quds Force is still operational. Hezbollah maintains tens of thousands of active combatants in Lebanon. The Houthis have already announced a resumption of missile and drone attacks on Red Sea shipping. Kataib Hezbollah has pledged to begin attacking U.S. bases across Iraq.

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