Opinion

Iran didn’t adapt to America's playbook. Russia and China already have

America’s two great-power adversaries, Russia and China, have already drawn significant lessons from Operation Epic Fury

By Joshua Treviño Fox News

Published March 1, 2026 3:00pm EST

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Trump warns Iran not to retaliate as law enforcement goes on high alert

AFPI American Security Director Jacob Olidort has the latest on warnings from President Donald Trump amid threats of retaliation from Iran after the death of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on 'Fox News Live.'

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The world now knows that, in a daring daylight strike on a clear Saturday in Tehran, the United States and the State of Israel opened what President Donald Trump, in his address to the nation, called "major combat operations" against the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Operation Epic Fury is is the very sort of thing that was not supposed to happen under President Donald J. Trump: America appears to be pursuing an open-ended regime-change operation in the Middle East. Having committed the prestige of his presidency to this project, Trump must now see it through. We should be open to the possibility that it will be achieved swiftly. If it is not, then it becomes the dominating project of his second term — and, moreover, the defining one.

There are significant differences between this regime-change project and the ones preceding it in Iraq and Afghanistan. First and foremost, there is no American occupation force in the offing. American aircraft will range across Iran at will; American soldiers will not.

The president made it explicit in his address that he expects the people of Iran to overthrow their own regime, and there is reason to believe they will. (Alleged footage of Iranians cheering the death of the ayatollah lends credence to this belief.) The good news, if one wishes, is that those other models are not being followed. The bad news is that........

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