February 28, 2026. The U.S. and Israel finally moved. They called it “Operation Epic Fury.” It was the most violent pivot from containment to active warfare since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and it changed the world’s axis overnight.

For weeks leading up to it, the rumors in Israel were a deafening hum. I was at the Cybertech conference in late January when a founder told me she was heading to Eilat for the weekend just to be safe. But in Israel, when the noise gets that loud, it starts to sound like silence. By February, I was certain the hit was coming. When I told people, they just shrugged: “They’ve been saying that forever.” We had succumbed to a collective “Boy Who Cried Wolf” syndrome—where every warning was just more neurotic fortune-telling.

Now, 86-year-old Supreme Leader Khamenei is dead. My feed is a wall of Olim and Israelis posting about a “Free Iran.” I don’t mean to be the cynic in the room, but the celebratory tone feels premature. The Iranian........

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