The smoldering wreckage of an American F-15 fighter jet in the Kuwaiti desert offers a grim, physical testament to the escalating costs of President Donald Trump’s latest Middle Eastern venture. Just 48 hours into Operation Epic Fury, the loss of advanced American hardware—and the precarious safety of its pilots—signals that the air campaign against Iran is not the one-sided surgical strike many in Washington had anticipated.

Instead, the images of smoke rising over Tehran and the orange glow of interceptors over the Persian Gulf suggest a familiar script: a high-stakes military gamble intended to reshape the region through sheer force now meeting a reality of sophisticated, asymmetric resistance. As the conflict enters its third day, the most consequential drama is not occurring in the Iranian skies but in the corridors of power in Washington, Jerusalem, and New Delhi.

For decades, the conventional wisdom in Washington was that a “maximum pressure” campaign, if pushed to its logical conclusion, would cause the Iranian clerical establishment to shatter along its internal fault lines. On February 28, 2026, President Trump, acting in close coordination with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, attempted to prove this theory by authorizing strikes that resulted in the death of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The strategic calculation was clear: decapitate the leadership, exploit internal dissent, and trigger a spontaneous domestic collapse.

However, that calculation........

© Eurasia Review