Three weeks into Operations Epic Fury and Roaring Lion, Prime Minister Netanyahu stood at a Jerusalem podium and declared that Iran can no longer enrich uranium or manufacture ballistic missiles. “We will crush them to dust, to ashes,” he said. The following day, Professor Michael Clarke’s Day 21 briefing for Sky News offered a complementary assessment: the deployment of A-10 Thunderbolts over the Strait of Hormuz proves that the air environment above Iran is “now fairly benign.” The campaign’s visual signature tells the escalation story in triptych: Tomahawk, B-1 Lancer, A-10 Thunderbolt. Each step down in platform sophistication signals a step up in air dominance.

The logic is impeccable. The economics are devastating.

CENTCOM reports over 6,000 combat sorties and more than 7,000 sites struck. Iran’s missile salvos have declined by approximately 90 per cent. Its naval fleet has lost over 100 vessels. The Natanz and Fordow enrichment facilities are inoperable. Netanyahu’s claim that Iran’s industrial base — not merely its deployed weapons but the factories that produce them — has been systematically destroyed represents a qualitative shift from the June 2025 Twelve-Day War, which the Israeli Institute for National Security Studies itself acknowledged had only temporarily removed the nuclear threat. This time, Israel targeted the means of reconstitution.

Yet every strategic gain has generated a corresponding economic cost. Brent crude has surged more than 50 per cent since 28 February, from around $70 to above $110, with the Asian benchmark crude briefly touching $150. The IRGC has declared that not a litre of oil will transit the Strait of Hormuz. Commercial shipping has effectively ceased. The International Energy Agency has authorised a release of 400 million barrels from emergency reserves — the largest in its history — covering barely 20 days of normal Hormuz traffic against daily global consumption exceeding 105 million barrels.

What makes this a fat-tail event rather than........

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